Chapter Twelve

 

He awoke with a pounding headache which drew his attention immediately to the center of his forehead. He'd slept far too long. The operation must be over and by the look of the sun he'd been out all night. It was midday again, not late afternoon. Too polite to wake him, his friends would be waiting patiently for him to recover so they could continue on their way.

He rolled over and got to his feet, stretched, and looked down at Azure.

Or was it Azure?

The outline matched, but other things did not. Azure was primarily a deep blue. Evan didn't remember those blobs of shifting red and green light that were now clinging to his friend's exterior. As he stared the red light shifted to yellow in places, fluctuating in intensity even as he looked.

"Azure, what's happened to you?"

"I told them." His friend's tone was mildly mournful. "I told them you wouldn't know how to react."

"React to what?" Evan turned toward the forest-and recoiled. It was alive with minute crawling things, tiny intensely colored shapes that hadn't been there the morning before. Strange linear forms appeared to grow from the edges of fractal surfaces, surfaces which had previously been nothing more than a blur to him. Even the air was alive with unsuspected life.

The headache worried him. He put his right hand to his forehead. It failed to make contact with his sunshades, the special glasses Azure had fashioned for him. And yet he found he could see clearly, unaffected by the overpowering light of Prism's star or the blinding reflections of its flora. It was as if there were no glare at all.

A particularly cloudy day, he told himself. But when he tilted his head back to survey the sky there wasn't a cloud to be seen. By rights he ought to be rolling on the ground by now with the tears streaming from his eyes. Instead, he found he was perfectly comfortable no matter where he looked.

He became aware he was the center of attention. The warriors, library, the physicians, even the newly repaired gatherer were eying him intently. Their silence was more eloquent than anything that could have been said.

He looked back down at Azure, spoke slowly. "What do you mean I wouldn't know how to react?" When no reply was forthcoming from his friend he turned his gaze on the staring physicians. "You've done something to me," he said tightly. "What have you done to me?" Like Azure, they did not reply.

He stalked past them, to the edge of the forest. Several small bushes grew in the shadow of larger growths. From the center of their transparent shells several glassy stalks emerged. At the tip of each was a plate-size organ that looked like a six-sided flect. Evan snapped one off and held the reflective side in front of his face.

He was clad in his froporia armor, as he had been when he'd fallen asleep the previous day, but there was no sign of his glasses. Excepting their absence everything looked normal. It was the face of Evan Orgell that gazed anxiously back at him, unaltered. Wasn't it? Something was wrong. Something was different, but for the life of him he couldn't tell what it was. Subtle and yet obvious, he was overlooking it while staring straight at it.

Of course. Evan Orgell had brown eyes. The face in the natural mirror had eyes of pale violet. That was impossible, of course, unless he had been given contact lenses. He started to smile. Leave it to the physicians never to be satisfied. They had replaced the crude shades forged by Azure with tiny contacts that performed the same chores more efficiently. So precisely had they fitted them to his eyes that he hadn't even felt their presence. He reached up carefully with a finger preparatory to removing one lens for closer inspection.

He blinked when he touched his eye. No lens rested on its surface. The headache wouldn't go away. It was joined by a gnawing suspicion. "What did you do to me?" he asked again, uneasier than ever. "You put something in my eyes, didn't you? Some kind of drops or something. That's why I can see without my sunshades. It changed the color of my eyes."

"Not exactly," the first physician said, moving nearer. "We just thought that as long as we were operating on gatherer we might as well work on you too. For some time now, we've been thinking about a way to free you from the ungainly apparatus you were forced to wear over your eyes."

Evan sat down, pulled his knees close to his chin and stared at the physician. "How did you do it?" He rubbed his hands over his eyes. Still no suggestion of newly inserted contacts. It had to have been some kind of drops, then. How long would they last before the effects wore off and he'd have to be redosed?

He looked past his companions, found he could see farther into the forest than ever. Intense bursts of colored light erupted from previously dead-looking growths. There was twice as much life in the forest as he'd suspected.

"Is this how you see? Into the ultraviolet and the infrared as well as throughout the normal spectrum?"

"I do not know what you mean by normal spectrum," the first physician replied, "but it was apparent from a cursory examination of your eyes that you were partially blind. We thought we could remedy this, as well as enable you to see in normal daylight without impairing your ability to see at night. You are pleased?"

"Of course I'm pleased, except for this damned headache. I guess it will go away. Must be from the initial effects of the drops."

The second physician spoke up. "Drops? What drops?"

Evan smiled. "The ones you used on me to produce this effect."

The physicians looked at each other. "We used no drops," the first said.

"You mean you built new lenses after all?" He frowned, rubbed at his eyes again. "I can't believe how tightly they fit. How do I get them out to clean them'?"

"I told you," Azure said suddenly. "I told you."

"Your body will clean them," the second physician informed him. "That is how it should be."

"Not the back side. I don't care how tightly you managed to fit the new ones, microscopic dirt and grit can always slip between a contact lens and the cornea."

"Evan," Azure said evenly, "you can't get them out."

"Your old lenses were deficient, as I explained," the first physician reminded him. "There was no way to modify them to see properly. So we replaced them."

"I can see that." Evan pointed toward his old shades, lying nearby.

"No. Your old lenses are here." Reaching into a cavity within his own body, the first physician removed something small and shiny and held it out. Evan found himself staring transfixed at two small, glassy objects. They were oval when seen from the side, round when viewed from above. They quivered slightly in the physician's open hand.

Evan stared at them until he began to shake violently. Finally he turned away, unable to look any longer. Despite the bright sunlight he was suddenly cold. But the headache was beginning to fade and there was no pain, though he was more conscious of his eyes than he'd ever been in his life. He kept them tightly shut, afraid to open them again.

"It was not as difficult as one might suppose." Unaware of Evan's trauma, physician rambled on as though discussing the repair of a simple household utensil. "We have studied soft-bodied forms intensively. We simply replaced your original lenses with new ones and made some small adjustments to the interpretation mechanism behind them."

"You did something to the rods and cones," Evan mumbled. "Something that enables me to see beyond the normal visible spectrum in both directions as well as to interpret fractal shapes more clearly."

Gently he used the tips of his fingers to press all around the orbits of his eyes. "What if it hadn't worked? What if I'd woken up completely blind?"

"You must have more confidence." Library spoke for the first time since Evan had rejoined them. "These physicians are among the most artistic of their kind."

"Your eyes are simple in form and almost identical to many we have studied," the second physician said. "The modifications were not complex. And we can always replace your old lenses anytime you wish us to do so."

"Not complex. My God, what could you people do with access to a few basic biology texts? What other operations can you perform?"

The first physician took another step toward him. "We have devoted much speculation to that. If you would like, we can-"

Evan retreated hastily. "No, no, you've done, more than enough!" He blinked at the wonderfully enhanced world around him. "You're sure you can restore my original sight if you have to?"

The physician displayed Evan's original lenses a second time. "Reasonably sure. That is why I will retain them." In a gesture worthy of the most accomplished surrealist he slipped them back into a small body cavity.

"I do hope you will elect to keep your new lenses," the second physician said. "It would be a shame to undo such a good piece of work."

"I'll think about it," Evan told it. "In the meantime, promise me you won't perform any more surprise operations? No matter how much you're convinced it will benefit me?" The physicians promised. Reluctantly, it seemed to Evan.

"If we had told you of our intentions beforehand, would you have permitted us to perform the operation?" asked the second physician.

Evan swallowed. "Look, I've been out for most of a day and a night. It's time we were moving on. And no modifications while I sleep, understand?"

They pushed through the forest, leaving the river far behind. It was late afternoon when Azure came running back to rejoin them from his forward position. Instead of speaking immediately he reared back on his hind legs and listened intently.

"What is it?" Library inquired impatiently.

"I wish we had a talker with us to confirm."

Wishful thinking indeed, Evan knew. The towering talkers had less mobility than any other member of the Associative, which was why none had come along in the first place.

"Confirm what?"

"Something is coming toward us. Very low-grade emanations. Not intelligent."

Suddenly Evan found himself joining his companions in scanning the surrounding growths. They were in a section of forest where the pure silicate flora had largely crowded out the organosilicates. Clusters of glassy gripes reached heavenward all around them save where they were shoved aside by thick brown arches. The crest of each arch was full of huge, weaving photoreceptors.

Evan turned sharply to his left. "Wait a minute, I think I hear something too." This announcement was followed by a loud, splintering crash.

The physician next to his legs looked around nervously. "I hear nothing."

It struck Evan that his friends might be deaf at the lower frequencies, attuned as they were to radio frequencies they utilized for interpersonal communication. Something sporting half a dozen delicate wings set three to a side along a slim silicate body flew out of the forest. It wasn't attacking and ignored the travelers completely. It boasted a long sharp bill and was bright pink with yellow stripes.

It was followed by half a dozen equally bizarre flying things. Then a veritable silicate zoo came swarming toward them, running, rolling, and crawling its way eastward. Evan barely had time to note the new species as they raced past.

They all had one thing in common: they were running from something. Azure had sensed it too.

"Maybe we'd better run also." Evan took a step backward. "Back to the river."

"Unreasoning flight is not the refuge of the intelligent," library pointed out. "We should not retreat until we have ascertained the nature of any potential danger." He didn't need to add that neither he nor the physicians were built for running.

Evan tried to see through the dense undergrowth. It couldn't be a fire. There was nothing there to burn. Besides, he saw neither smoke nor flame. Suddenly two huge silicate trees shattered directly off to his left. Syrupy liquid began to fountain from the broken trunks. Evan's eyes widened.

"A shervan!" the library shouted even as he turned to scramble for cover. But there was no cover from a shervan. One simply got out of its way.

Evan had encountered few large lifeforms since setting down on Prism and he could only gape in astonishment at this one, the most extraordinary by far. What he'd thought at first were long, thick tentacles sheathed in opaque glass revealed themselves on closer inspection to be mouths on the ends of muscular necks. Each maw was lined with a splendid array of rotating serrated teeth and appeared capable of functioning independent of its neighbors. He counted twelve snapping, voracious sets of jaws growing from a massive gray lump of body without visible eyes, ears, or anything resembling a sensory organ. It traveled on a series of flat plates that ran in a continuous band around its entire body, which propelled the entire organism forward with startling speed.

Before Evan and his companions could scatter, one of the warriors was grasped by a powerful mouth. Two more mouths immediately attacked it from both sides while it squirmed desperately in the crushing grip of the first. Dismemberment occurred rapidly, but not before the doomed warrior had succeeded in damaging one neck with its own buzzsawlike teeth.

Evan dodged around a tree, looking backward instead of where he was going. So he didn't see the mouth that was waiting for him until he felt the pain. The shervan teeth went right through his froporia armor and pulled away with most of the lower section. It also tore out a substantial chunk of his abdomen. He staggered backward, staring down at his exposed intestines.

Another warrior jumped in and clamped its jaws on the neck, the sound of its rotating teeth harsh in Evan's ears. Flesh and silicate shards went flying. The mouth turned its attention to this new threat.

Somehow he ran on despite the gaping hole in his gut. The shervan pursued with demonic speed. It bit again, at his chest this time, spinning Evan completely around. Bones splintered as pressure was applied. The warrior who had freed him once leaped to the attack again and this time succeeded in cutting completely through the neck.

A human body can cope with only so much damage before the brain begins to shut it down. The last thing Evan remembered was a feeling of falling backward. n he lay there, still half-conscious, and tried to follow the progress of the battle.

The shervan seemed to be turning away. Having lost one mouth completely with two more badly injured it had apparently decided to seek less resilient prey. Evan could see first physician attending to various wounds. One warrior at least had been killed and consumed, but by and large, his companions had survived the attack.

Unfortunately, he thought as he passed out, he was only made of flesh and blood.

 

They found him lying motionless in the patch of quickweed where he'd fallen. In order to determine the full extent of his wounds the physicians hurriedly cut away what remained of his froporia armor. From what they knew of organic construction, it was clear that the damage was extensive.

In order to prevent the kind of decay and infection soft things were heir to, second physician immediately sealed the damaged areas with a thin, aseptic transparent film. Blood quickly began to fill the two raw cavities. It was clear even to the warriors that if drastic surgery wasn't performed soon, their strange otherworldly visitor would not last until nightfall.

The physicians were consulting nonstop. That peculiar pumping device which pushed red fluid through the entire system, for example, was badly damaged and functioning only fitfully. The same could be said for the twin gas bellows which lay over the pump and to the side, and for the chemical processing organs lying shredded in the main body cavity below. It was just as well Evan had passed out before becoming aware of the extent of his injuries. Had he known he undoubtedly would have given up on the spot.

His companions, however, were appraising the situation dispassionately.

"It will be interesting," library said. "We have never before undertaken to repair such an extensively damaged organic form."

"He won't like it." Azure glanced from processor, already working furiously, to the two physicians.

"He has no choice," library pointed out, "and neither do we. The life will leave him unless he can be repaired." It gestured with a thin tentacle. "Look at that mess. You know how fragile these organic systems are. Something must be done, and quickly."

"I am concerned about the shock when he regains consciousness," murmured the scout.

"Let us worry about that if and when he regains consciousness," the first physician said. "If we do not hasten to repair the damage, he will never regain consciousness long enough to experience shock." It turned its attention back to the soft body. "This is going to take some time. We will maintain necessary functions through the use of our own bodies where necessary. I hope this Evan form is possessed of a strong constitution. He is going to need it if he is to survive our work." It gestured, spoke to its colleague. "I think it best if we begin with that pump."

Second physician agreed. A tentacle reached toward that irregularly beating, pinkish-red organ. Its silicate tip was bright and sharp.

 

There was only the deep darkness. Then there was a distant, faint humming sound, soft and relaxing. Evan opened his eyes.

He was lying on his back, staring up at faces. Not faces exactly. More like the product of some busy abstract sculptor. The sculptures moved away until only two remained. He recognized Azure and first physician.

As he recognized he remembered: the terrible hot pain of the shervan's teeth cutting into him, ripping away huge gobbets of flesh, sending blood flying everywhere. He remembered gazing down at himself to see his guts hanging out of his belly like so many white ropes tom from a hidden spool. How detached his mind had been while considering his. evisceration. It was as if he'd been only a witness to the disaster instead of an intimate participant.

In his mind he went over the long list of injuries he'd suffered. By any reasonable stretch of the imagination he ought to be stone cold dead. He was not. He did feel, though, as if he'd been run over several times by a large, heavy vehicle. His entire being ached, and he was glad of it. Another sign that he was alive. Everything seemed to be functioning properly, including the communications device the physicians had plugged into him. He was certain of the latter because he could clearly hear Azure addressing the rest of his companions.

"It works," the scout assured them.

"Yes, I still work," he mumbled mentally, "but I shouldn't. I shouldn't be talking to you now." He knew why he was alive, of course: the physicians had been at work. Somehow, they had taken the mess the shervan had made of him and put it back together. He was almost afraid to look down at himself for fear of what he might see. A foolish and unbecoming fear, he told himself. Whatever he saw could not be worse than being dead.

He sat up, noting that his newly modified eyes were functioning perfectly. Since he could now see well into the infrared he was not surprised to see that his lower abdomen was generating a substantial amount of heat. That was normal enough for a human body.

What was not was the transparent pane which had replaced his skin from the groin to just below his neck, much less the alien and unrecognizable shapes which lay behind it. He sat and stared, and stared.

"Shock?" the first physician wondered.

"I think not." The second stepped forward, rested a reassuring tentacle on Evan's right leg. "We were unable to repair the covering as it was too badly shredded. We cannot regenerate organic compounds such as those which comprise the covering you called skin. We haven't the necessary skills. So we repaired as best as we were able." Evan didn't comment. He was too engrossed in an intimate study of self.

First physician moved to stand alongside his colleague. "We had no choice. You would have died. You were dying as we worked on you. We did the best we could. We had no choice."

"I told you he'd be upset," Azure said.

"Upset?" Evan recognized the croak as his own voice. He raised his gaze to the physicians. "I know I was dying. Hell, I should be dead right now. That I'm not I know is due entirely to your skills and the work you did. I'm just not used to the kind of work you did." He looked thoughtful. "You know, we have an expression, something about a `window onto the soul."' Gingerly he pressed against the transparent skin, discovered that it was flexible and remarkably tough. Behind it, his insides hummed away at keeping him alive. And some of them literally hummed.

A lesser man might have fainted or gone mad. Not Evan Orgell. He was too conscious of his own invulnerable self. He wouldn't die because the universe obviously couldn't get along without him.

First physician extended a tendril. "We concluded that this was the most important organ of all, so we replaced it first."

"A good thing you were not struck in the head," second physician said. "That would have been beyond our skill."

Evan looked down into his chest, past the silvery balloons that were flexing in and out, out and in. Behind the one on the left was a mass of plastic and tubing that pulsed at a different rate.

"Two pumps. One for fluid, one for gas. That's all," first physician said.

“Yes, that's all."

"You can see where we bonded the replacement material to what remains of the original organic flesh. It was simpler than rebuilding the mess left behind. All that tubing, just to carry fluids, and so many small ones. Very ineffcient. But we were too busy keeping you alive to worry about possible improvements."

Evan examined the new arteries and veins, flexible hoses fashioned of vitreous, gleaming material. They were translucent. If he looked hard he could make out the blood flowing through the largest.

"Actually, the pumps gave us less trouble than some of the less vital organs located farther down." Second physician gestured. "Those things there."

Evan looked off to one side. Lying on the ground, stacked neat as a roll of used cable, were his intestines. He swallowed, tried to view the sight clinically and from a distance. It was not easy.

His stomach had been repaired and put back in place. Protruding from it was a neat mass of tubing. Off to one side and slightly lower than the stomach was something that looked like a loaf of dried bread. As near as he could tell, his spleen and liver had survived intact.

Second physician turned back to him, occasionally referring to the pile of tattered intestines as he spoke. "Those were badly damaged. Repairing them properly would have taken too much time, and the entire arrangement struck us as a particularly bad example of internal organization. For one thing, they took up far more space than necessary." A tendril indicated the peculiar loaf shape. "We devised a storage facility for your body. It collects and distributes additional energy compounds as they are needed." The physician's voice was tinged with humor. "You helped us create a battery for our own bodies. We thought it only fair to return the favor."

"This absurd business of metabolizing gas and the component parts of other soil things to power a body never ceases to amaze," library added.

"There is a simpler device for carrying off waste materials directly from the metabolizing units," first physician went on. "Less risk of contaminating the rest of the body. We also installed one venting device instead of the previous two. It struck us an utterly unnecessary duplication, in addition to which the vent now discarded appeared to possess the potential to interfere with organic reproductive methods. I'm sure you'll agree that this new arrangement is far more sensible and efficient."

"You know," the library said thoughtfully, "I really don't understand this need to kill and consume other organic forms when you can obtain all the same compounds directly from the ground. I think your modified metabolic system could process them directly. It would be much neater and save you a lot of light time."

"I don't think I could get used to eating dirt." At least there were no blinking lights inside his torso. He was still human--wasn't he? Or did Azure and the others now qualify as near relations instead of just friends?

"Are you ready to stand up?" asked Azure.

Evan nodded, put both palms against the ground, and pushed. He thought he rattled as he rose, but it was only his imagination. The remaining empty spaces within his body had been packed firm with an antiseptic, transparent gel. His immune system ignored all the replacements. There wasn't a "living" carbon-based device among them.

He wasn't the least bit hungry, nor was there reason for him to be, the physicians explained. They had helpfully tube-fed him while waiting for him to recover consciousness. Not only his stomach but his new storage organ should be full of glucose and other readily metabolized substances.

"How do you feel?" Azure asked him.

"Ten kilos lighter, but then I suppose I probably am." He did some twisting and bending. There was no pain. He touched his fingertips to his toes, bringing his face flat up against his transparent torso. Except for that vague, all-over ache, he felt hale and hearty.

"It was fortunate that your reproductive organs were below the highest blow the shervan delivered," second physician said. "As with your brain, our skills would not have been equal to the task of replacement."

"You're not half as glad as I am." Evan fought to keep the inevitable bizarre images out of his mind. "The rest of it strikes me as impossible anyway. You just don't throw away hearts and lungs and so forth and fashion new ones with your hands, like pottery."

"The design is complex," first physician agreed, "but no more so than similar organic systems we have studied. The body, any body, is only a mobile device for shuttling the brain about. The scout actually dissuaded us from attempting further improvements while we worked."

Evan threw Azure a grateful glance, wondering if it would be understood. "What sort of improvements?"

"For one thing," the second physician informed him, "we would like for you to consider the possibility at some future time of allowing us to replace that entire absurd oxydizing system with one similar to our own."

"Thanks," Evan told it, "but if I spend too much time out in the sun I'm likely to break out in hives." He glanced downward again. "Everything seems to be working. The toughest thing to get used to is the idea of being able to see inside myself."

"We could replace the covering with something opaque, perhaps even color it to match the rest of your skin."

"No. No, not now. Another time, perhaps."

"Everything is fashioned of the strongest materials," first physician said. "Processor saw to that. Strong yet soft, so as not to damage your remaining natural organs."

"You saved my life. Thank you. Even if this new life is going to take some getting used to."

"You really ought to let us replace that entire energy production system." Second physician was persistent.

Azure stepped between it and Evan. "Leave him alone. He's suffered enough shocks for one day, mental and physical. Consider his point of reference. How would you react if you awoke one morning to discover that your eyes had been replaced with orbs of organic matter floating in a loosely liquid socket?"

"A ghastly image,"

The scout turned to look up at his newly repaired friend. "You came to study our home and it would seem you have become closer to your studies than you bargained for."

"Yeah. I had in mind a less intimate learning experience." He chuckled. The body ache was beginning to fade. "I'm going to be quite the center of attention when I return. Perhaps some of you would like to accompany me?" He could envision the physicians operating on a hopelessly injured human body, replacing damaged innards with smooth silicate replacements of their own manufacture and design.

"We must reach this beacon of yours first," Azure reminded him. "Or can it be that your priorities have changed along with your body?"

"No. I'm as human as I ever was." Only my perception has changed a little, he told himself confidently. Only the perception. There was nothing unusual about his new artificial heart or lungs. Different methods of installation and manufacture had been employed, that was all. A team of human surgeons trying to save his life would have dug into him with similar results in mind.

The lower portion of his froporia armor had survived and been recovered by the warriors, along with the arm pieces. Regretting the loss of the rest, he donned what was left. Perhaps they could locate another froporia pool and the missing sections could be regrown.

Somehow the process no longer struck him as threatening or repellent. Ire glanced down at his beacon. It was glowing very brightly indeed now. They didn't want to lose sight of where it was leading them.

Just as he would have to take pains not to lose sight of who he was.

 

"We must be very close." Azure looked excited in spite of himself. Looked rather than sounded. Evan had learned that when Azure or any of his kin became agitated, they tended to fluoresce slightly. "I can hear the signal myself now."

"So can I," library said, "though my hearing is not as acute as a scout's."

Apparently Evan wasn't the only one looking forward to the forthcoming reunion-assuming there was anything to reunion with.

Increasing their pace, they reached the crest of a steep hill, climbing through low flora fashioned from what looked like sheets of imperial topaz. From the ridge they could look down into a small valley. Martine Ophemert was nowhere in sight, but something else was.

"There lies your beacon," Azure said quietly, "but not your companion. I fear she has gone the way of all flesh."

"I have never seen anything like that in all my life." A profound confession, coming from library, who was after all the repository of every bit of knowledge the members of the Associative had ever accumulated. Not content to conclude with a single profundity, he added another.

"I think we'd better get away from this place."

Evan was gaping at the valley. It was completely bare of the normal profusion of silicate and organosilicate life. There wasn't any room for it because the valley was already occupied-by a single gargantuan, constantly shifting organism.

It was a crazy quilt of fractal shapes and projections, asymmetrical as a wild seashore. Even Evan's newly altered eyes failed to discern any unifying pattern. It was an uncontrolled explosion of life gone berserk, pulling and tearing at itself to form new combinations and shapes even as they watched. Antennae erupted from unpredictable sources, thrusting out of half-animal, half-inanimate bulges. Every type and kind of limb groped for a hold on the ground or the surviving valley flora which had not yet been overwhelmed: tentacles and hands, cilia and claw. Organic eyes competed with silicate lenses for viewing space.

Pink hemispheres hung in bloated bunches from the flanks of the abomination like bloody gas bags. One part decorated with delicate blue and green stripes ended abruptly where a massive red rhombohedral growth protruded from the monstrosity's back. The rhomboid was full of black inclusions and pulsed steadily in and out, like an enormous slab-sided lung. Limbs pushed and pulled without rhythm or pattern, with the result that the creature expended an enormous amount of energy in going nowhere.

"Chaos," muttered one of the physicians. "From what bud could such a horror spring? Randomness come to fife. It is everything and yet it is nothing."

"What about the beacon?" Gazing down at the cancerous growth which filled the valley, Evan was afraid he already knew the answer.

Azure gestured toward the near end of the pulsating sea of life. "Down there."

"Your friend is dead, as you feared all along," said first physician. "Consumed along with dozens of other unlucky creatures."

"Yes. See there, the remains of several awarites." Library pointed to the back of the heaving mass, which rose a good thirty meters from the floor of the obliterated valley.

"Yes," physician agreed, "and over there the limbs of cotars and eviols, still moving, still attempting to perform their natural functions."

"It does more than absorb its prey," library commented cautiously. "It keeps all or parts of them alive and makes use of them. That, I think, is the answer to your earlier question. This is not one creature but hundreds, all thrown and joined together by some unifying force. But there is no rhyme or reason to it, no design, no architecture. Chaos it is and chaos is its plan."

"You mean some of the other creatures that thing has consumed are still alive?" Evan was straining to follow library's train of thought.

"Alive perhaps. Alive as individuals, no. Perhaps the hundreds have not been consumed so much as co-opted."

"Then where is the being that began it all, that controls it-insofar as it's being controlled."

"Who knows? It must be greatly transformed from what it was originally. It must be buried deep within the anarchical self it has become." Library glanced up at Evan. "I say again we should leave this place. It is apparent that your friend is no longer alive. Her remains, by the location of the beacon that led us here, must lie somewhere within the mass. Look, the weight of it is so great the ground sags beneath it."

"Perhaps there is even more of it we cannot see," Azure suggested, "lying hidden beneath the surface."

Words too late to be dissected, alas, followed by proof all could have done without. Eight huge silicate tentacles broke the soil below them. Each ended in strong fingers of bright orange that clutched and grabbed.

Library and the physicians went up in coils of orange fibers, while the three warriors were pinned so tightly they couldn't bring their teeth to bear. Evan tried to run, was enveloped by a blast of sticky white fibers attached to the end of one tentacle. The soft, unbreakable fuzz tickled but he wasn't laughing. He felt himself being drawn down into the valley, kicking and shouting to his companions.

They were as helpless as ants in the hands of a giant, a giant that filled the entire valley.

"Co-opted!" library yelled at all of them as he fought against the entangling limbs. Did that mean dead or alive?

They were about to find out. A flap on the upper flank of the monster opened in expectation of their arrival. There were no visible teeth and it looked more like a door than a mouth. Meter-long cilia gripped him when the orange tentacle let go and withdrew. One by one, his friends joined him inside.

The outer flap closed and the roof began to descend. Evan fought hard. Suffocation was a particularly unpleasant form of death. The thin sheet of flesh pressed down tightly-and broke, to slide down around him and his friends. It halted near his waist, imprisoning him firmly. Like a bee floating in a bucket, a fist-size yellow-and black eye popped out of the englobing ooze to stare briefly at him before moving on to inspect first physician.

Evan pressed against the material surrounding him. It was already hardening and held him tight. From below, a small wave of yellow slag was approaching, flowing upward in defiance of gravity. It reached him and began to crawl slowly up his sides, hardening as it advanced.

His friends were likewise imprisoned. If the rate of rise remained constant, all of them would be completely submerged before evening. By virtue of his greater height Evan might hold out for another day or so. Already he could feel the noisome stuff crawling over his chin, covering first his mouth, then plugging both nostrils, cutting off his air, his lungs bursting.

There was to be no placid period of extended contemplation, however. Thin waxy tendrils emerged from the fluid surface and tried to slither up his rib cage. He used his arms and hands to rip them away until something struck him from behind ...

Night had fallen by the time he regained consciousness. The light from Prism's multiple moons cast a silvery gloss over the heaving, never still surface of which he was now a part. Both of his arms were imprisoned close to his ribs and the yellow syrup had risen to his sternum.

He was acutely conscious of the single tendril which had snaked its way up his shoulder to enter through his left ear. Once more he was plugged in, only this time the connection was involuntary.

A few lumpy silhouettes were visible off to his right, all that remained of his entombed companions. By this time tomorrow he too would have vanished. He could see library and Azure clearly beneath the layer of semitransparent material. Since they did not breathe they must still be alive. He could not decide if he envied them.

No point in screaming. He'd done enough screaming already on this world. He even managed a wry, private grin. Here he'd come all this way to find Martine Ophemert and now that he'd found her, he wasn't going to be allowed to leave. They were to be joined, as hundreds of other inhabitants of Prism had been joined, in a noxious and unholy congress.

He had come dozens of light-years to perish as part of an organic soup, an alien ollapodrida. All to no purpose.

"That is untrue," said an entirely new voice inside his head.

So the tendril reaching into his brain was a communications link, and not merely some forgotten animate independence acting out irresistible instincts.

"Each new acquisition contributes to the success of the whole."

Yes, a new voice, different from library's, different from Azure's. A vibrant, powerful voice walking the edge of nervous hysteria. The voice of a wholly confident mad thing. As unsettled verbally as it was physically.

"You have already absorbed another of my kind." It. was intended as a statement of fact, not as a question.

The response was disconcerting. "I have seen another soft thing like yourself, but could not induce it to join me."

"That's not true. You have within you a device which was a part of this other individual, a device which emits light and sound."

"The thing you speak of, a most curious and fascinating artifact, is indeed within me. But I was not also able to cojoin with its originator. Sadly, it avoided my blandishments."

Anyone but Evan Orgell would have laughed. Or cried. He did neither, luxuriating in the delicious irony of the situation while retaining complete control of his churning emotions. How utterly perfect! How exquisitely droll! It was true, then, what the philosophers said: the universe was the biggest joker of all. He had walked, stumbled, and crawled across the hostile surface of an alien world in hopes of effecting a gallant rescue, only to end up in need of rescue by the one he sought.

But that thought was premature as well as unlikely. How this monstrosity had come into possession of Ophemert's beacon he could only surmise, but that didn't change the fact that she was probably dead. Consumed by some other voracious citizen of Prism, no doubt.

No wonder he'd been able to track her beacon so easily. No wonder the signal had remained in approximately the same place. The irony of it was marvelous.

What a shame he'd never have the opportunity to share it with anyone else.

"Why are you so despondent?" the voice wondered. "I mean you no harm."

Evan found that he was still able to laugh. He hoped his mental reply sounded sufficiently incredulous. "You mean us no harm? You attack and carry us off and then imprison us in this mass, which I presume is part of yourself, and you still claim to mean us no harm?"

"I mean you no harm. You are to become contributors to a great experiment."

"What kind of 'experiment'?"

"The experiment that is I. Me. Myself. I am the Integrator. I am you and you are me. All will become me and I will become all."

The philosophy is not new, Evan told himself. That was a cry common to many would-be tyrants and dictators stretching far back into the depths of human history. But he doubted it had ever been previously stated on a purely biological level. His demise was to be truly unique: he was going to be murdered by a megalomaniacal melanoma.

"All contribute. I especially value intelligence. You and your companions are intelligent. They come from an Associative, but I am the greatest Associative that has ever been or ever will be. I am the only true Associative."

"You are not an Associative because you are not organized." Evan was certain he recognized the voice of library, bitter and accusatory-and disturbingly weak.

"Organization follows form. I am the Integrator and my purpose is to link together as many lifeforms as possible, until I have become all the world and all the world has become me! One single immense organism, the logical end of all Associatives."

Though weakened and helpless, library would not concede. "You are not organized. There is no design to your growth, no rhythm to your expansion. It is as chaotic as your intentions. You are not an Associative. You are not integrated. You are an anarchy."

"Organization requires only the proper integration of a sufficient diversity of lifeforms. That has not yet been achieved."

"You don't understand yourself. You can continue to grow in mass but not in mind. Organization does not occur on its own behalf."

"You are only a fragment," the Integrator replied contemptuously. "What can you know of destiny?"

Superficial as well as insane, Evan mused.

"You will see. There are several libraries within the Associative, each contributing its own store of knowledge to the greater whole that is I, Us, Me. See."

Quiet reigned while the Integrator put library in touch with others of his kind who had preceded him to oblivion. "You have their knowledge, their talents, yes. You have information without the ability to apply it, though, because you have stripped them of their individuality. They can no longer discuss, argue, and compare. They can only comply. You have destroyed that which is most useful about them."

"There can be no individuality within a true Associative. You will not miss yours, I assure you. Instead you will find far greater fulfillment as a library as part of a proper whole. It is how it was meant to be. Each contributes a specialization to the whole. Multiplicity is versatility."

"Not without individuality," library argued. "Without individuality there can be no innovation, and without innovation there can be no development. You can grow but you cannot mature. You can repeat but you cannot create. You will not be capable of an original thought."

"Ah, but that is where you are most wrong, for am I not the most original thought of all? Where but in me have you ever seen such originality before?"

"Only in nightmares," Evan murmured.

"You are mentally and physically insane," library added, "though I don't expect you to recognize that. Individuals cannot forcibly be integrated."

"Wrong, wrong, you are so wrong! It can be done. It has been done. I have done it. I am it." Around Evan the surface of the Integrator flared with an intense green light, an outpouring of uncontrolled emotion, a visual shout.

"You're right," Evan said quietly. "It can be done." He could sense the shock among his companions. "It can be done, and you are not proof of it-I am. Look closely at me. I am warrior, library, physician and scout, gatherer and scanner, all in one. You cannot integrate two Integrators."

"Yes, that's so," said Azure, quickly divining Evan's intent. "Let him go."

"No. I am not so easily tricked. Within myself are many purely organic lifeforms. Some contribute while others have proved useless, but I would not deny to any the fulfillment that comes from being wholly integrated. I will learn from this one as I did not have the chance to learn from the other."

"You won't learn a damn thing from me," Evan assured it. "I'm not a sun-eater. When this goo covers my head I'll die."

"It will not matter. I will learn from your parts, as I have learned from and made use of similar soft bodies." By way of illustration a dozen brown limbs emerged from the slick surface nearby and waved at him. They had been removed from a dozen unfortunate deceased owners. Evan was nearly sick.

"When you are fully integrated you will be more cooperative," the Integrator assured him blithely.

It veneers itself with reason, Evan told himself tiredly, much as a cheap piece of furniture is plated with expensive wood, and so it convinces itself it is sane. He wasn't going to be able to argue himself out of this deathtrap. The Integrator was composed of hundreds, thousands, of bodies of similar unfortunates, and Evan was going to join them. It would pick his imprisoned body apart, move his brain to the section reserved for brains, use his eyes and ears as it saw fit. And there was no reason to doubt that one day, unless it was stopped by some natural disaster, it would indeed have consumed every intelligent being on the planet. What would happen then, when it finally realized that it was no more successful than when it had begun? Would it finally recognize its own insanity?

An interesting and totally moot question, which Evan would not be around to learn the answer to. He and Azure and all the others were going to suffer the bliss of integration, whether they wanted to or not.

He could still broadcast to his friends by means of the device they had implanted in his head, but they did not reply to his repeated queries. Perhaps they were being blocked, or perhaps their own communications facilities had been taken over already. They might be able to hear him but not to respond. He was sure they were still alive. So long as sunlight reached their receptors and their bodies remained intact they would continue to live. Not like him, when his head was finally submerged. Heart pounding, lungs exploding. He wondered if his teeth would have any effect on the yellow silicate that was slowly entombing him and resolved come morning to find out.

And if he could hold it off, then what? Slow death from thirst or starvation? The alternatives were not promising.

The fear and tension, the worry and anxiety, combined to exhaust him. He welcomed the exhaustion, as he welcomed inevitable sleep. If he was extremely fortunate he might suffocate before he awoke.