A Day for Damnation twatc-2 Page 7

  She stopped herself abruptly, and looked at me. "In a way, they're lucky. When we're sad, we carry it around with us forever. Most of us are still dragging around the dead bodies of our past." She looked sad for just the briefest instant, then buried it again under a facade of business-as-usual.

  "Come on, this way-"

  "Huh?"

  She pointed.

  Three huge trucks were grumbling slowly into the plaza. The herd began shifting toward them. I thought of cattle heading toward a pasture. The trucks came to a halt., The backs of the trucks opened, and out of each fell a dozen huge bales of... something yellow.

  I glanced at Fletcher again.

  "Lunch," she explained. "You want some?"

  "Huh?"

  "Come on." She took my hand and led me through the crowd. It wasn't difficult to push our way through the bodies. I noticed they had a strong rank smell to them and mentioned it casually.

  "Herd odor," said Fletcher. "I think that's one of the ways they keep together. After a while, you get so you can find the herd by its scent alone."

  We pushed up near one of the bales. It looked like it was made up of big pieces of yellow farfel. It smelled yeasty and buttery. "It's impregnated with vitamins and antibiotics and God knows what else," Fletcher said.

  As we watched, the herd members gathered around the bale and began to pull chunks away from it like pieces of bread. They carried their food away with them, not eating until they found a quiet place. Then they sat and chewed quietly. Their expressions remained blank. The entire process was orderly and remarkably quiet.

  Some of them sat with their mates or their companions and fed each other with their fingers. I saw a mother feeding her child-at least, I assumed it was her own child; but it might not have been. Two teenage girls shared their meal, giggling. An old man squatted alone and chewed thoughtfully.

  A big bearlike man was carrying a piece of the loaf big enough to feed at least a dozen people. Another man came up to him and ripped part of it away. The bearlike man did not protest; in fact, he anchored himself to help rip the piece in half.

  There was no hostility or greed or impatience anywhere in the herd. They moved like cattle. They chewed like cattle.

  "Is that stuff drugged at all?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Not any more. We tried it once. It only made them crazy. Crazier. They don't need drugs."

  One of the cowboys on the back of the truck waved to us then. "Hey, Fletch!" he called. "Are you here again?"

  Fletcher grinned and waved back. "Howya doin', Jake?"

  "I'm fine," he said. "But you better watch yourself, or your tits'll be hanging out in the sun with the rest of 'em."

  Fletch grinned and waved back. "Not till the food gets a little better. I'm not ready to give up my steaks yet."

  The cowboy pulled a big chunk off a bale. "Well, here-try it. We've changed the recipe again. Maybe you'll like this enough to join us." He tossed the breadlike mass across to us.

  I stepped forward and plucked the stuff out of the air. I turned and offered it to Fletcher. She pulled a smaller piece off the mass and tasted it. "Not bad," she called, "-but it's still not sirloin." She held out the rest of the piece for me to eat; she practically pushed it into my mouth. It was soft, warm, fresh and buttery. And it required just enough chewing to be... pleasant. I took another bite.

  "Be careful, Jim." Fletcher took the rest of the loaf away. "That's one of the ways people get started." She handed it to a sad-looking boy who'd been hanging back from the main mass of the feeders. He brightened immediately and scampered off to a deserted place to begin eating. "That's Weepy Willie," she said. "He prefers to beg. God knows what he was like when he was human."

  She shook her head sadly. "There are a lot of ways to get sucked in. Mostly, you just get tired of day-to-day living. Just being responsible for yourself can be exhausting sometimes." She stopped and looked at me. "This whole thing is dangerous. It sucks energy. Even studying it is dangerous. Any attention at all we give to it just feeds it. It's a kind of social cancer. It grows and it eats. It turns healthy cells into sick ones-and then the sick cells have to be tended, so more healthy cells have to be exposed. It's a neverending process."

  "I've seen the reports," I said.

  "There's something else though. Something that hasn't been in the reports-because we don't know what to make of it. That's what I want you to see." Fletcher brushed her dark hair back from her eyes. She looked grim.

  I asked, "All right, so when do I see this whatever it is?"

  "Not too much longer. But come on, I want you away from the center. It can get a little... overwhelming." She led me back toward our jeep. "You're already a little glassy-eyed."

  "Huh?"

  "I said- Never mind. Stop here. Tell me a joke."

  "Huh?"

  "Tell me a joke-" she repeated.

  "Um, why did the Chtorran cross the road?"

  "Because it was shorter than going around. Tell me one I haven't heard."

  "Why-?"

  "I'm trying to find out if you're still home. Humor is a good test-it requires intellectual ability. Tell me another."

  "Right. Uh, what does a Chtorran do when he wakes up in the morning?"

  She shrugged, "What?"

  "Says grace."

  She chuckled once and nodded. "You're okay." She turned me to face the milling herd.

  "All right. Now what?"

  "We wait."

  We didn't have to wait long. Lunch was over. Now, the herdmembers were beginning to play among themselves. Some of the younger members were playing a loose form of tag. They reminded me of puppies. Run and chase, tumble and wrestle. But they played in silence, only occasionally yipping or barking. There were no words.

  The herd was beginning to be more active now. There was more pairing occurring-some of it was sexual, some of it was not. I noticed that the coupling was remarkably casual. There was little regard for age or sex. A middle-aged female was playing with a teenage male. A male who looked about twenty-five was holding hands with a girl about thirteen. There were several homosexual pairs too, both male and female.

  But there were other gatherings that looked to be specifically nonsexual. A cluster of youngish children were milling together and babbling at each other, "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. . . ." Other groups were beginning to form now, clusters of three or five or even more. Several of the bull males were circling the edges of the plaza, herding the straggling members inward.

  "It's starting, isn't it?" I said.

  "Uh huh."

  I watched, fascinated, as the herd began to solidify as a mass. The couples who had been initiating sex play were breaking off now to join the clustering masses. I found it hard to see the herdmembers as people any more. They were ... pink apes. Animals.

  I shuddered. I was getting the eeriest feeling. I touched Fletcher's arm. "This is ... weird," I said. "I feel like an alien here. I feel like they're the human race and I'm the outsider."

  Fletcher nodded. "I know the feeling."

  I didn't let go of her arm. I needed to be touching her. The herd was clustering thicker now. They were becoming a milling compact mass.

  "Listen-"

  The sound was formless at first. They were murmuring among themselves. Individual voices floated above the rest. But the murmuring was starting to blend now and all the myriad voices were disappearing into an all-pervasive atonal chorus. There was no pattern to it, no sense of harmony or rhythm. Nor even key. It was just a grand and powerful, all-consuming sound. And it was growing.

  It was a fascinating sound-full of hints and meaning. An annoying sound. Reasonless and empty. Steady in its intensity, but uneven in its components. The voices whispered-like the voices in my dreams-if only I could hear what they were saying

  I said, "It sounds and feels like the rumble of the machinery that runs underneath the world. It sounds ... like.. ."

  "Jim, you should hear your voice," Fletcher said.

  "Huh?
"

  "There's a tremble in it-just like that note out there. You're being affected." She caught herself "And so am I." I could hear the excitement rising in her voice too.

  "But this is-incredible!" I said, turning to her.

  "Are you all right?"

  I nodded. "I'm fine-it's just... I can feel that note resonating throughout my whole body." I was still holding her arm. "I can feel myself rumbling with it. I want to echo it. Do you feel it? It feels like... we're included, like... we're a part of the herd too. . . . "

  "We are a part of the herd," she said. "We're the part of the human herd that observes itself. We're the parts of the tribe that broke free so we could look back from the outside."

  "But we can't stay out here forever, can we?" But she didn't hear me. I let go of her arm.

  "That phenomenon-" she was pointing excitedly, "-just might be the place where we experience home. You know, the home that we're always longing to return to, but we can never find? That just might be it." She grabbed my hand and forced me to look at her eyes. "Whatever `space of consciousness' is being created over there-it includes us too! Just watching is being part of the herd! And to the extent that we can recognize ourselves in that mass, we're tuned into it. Do you see now why it's so dangerous?"

  "Mm hm. Dangerous...." I wondered why she was shouting. Why was she so intense? She didn't have to be. It was nice out here. The herd seemed pleasant enough.

  "It's our sentience-our awareness of self-that allows us to stay separate. That chorus is a-a calling, Jim. It's a communication without symbols. To listen to it, you have to abandon concept and listen instead for... experience. It's too powerful! It upsets, it annoys, it fascinates, it enchants. It can't help but have an effect on us, the way it washes over us. We just-can't allow ourselves to ... to. . . " She began to trail off. ". . . let ourselves ... Jim ... ?"

  I was glad that she had stopped talking. Her words didn't make any sense any more anyway. They were just noises strung together. She was keeping me from concentrating on the sound of the rest of the herd. It was an incredible noise they were making. All of them together were making pattering noises. I'd heard this noise somewhere before-as if from a time before I was born. All the voices in the world, talking about something in words that weren't words because words hadn't been invented yet.

  My mouth was moving with them. I made mumbling noises of my own, trying to ... understand. Trying to be a part ...

  What was happening here?

  Happening. It was happening. Herding. Calling. All the voices singing. Laughing. Boys and boys together. Girls and girls. Boys and boys and girls and girls and all of us. Calling. Someone was holding my hand, I couldn't move forward. Calling. The calling was getting louder. What?

  Someone was pulling me backward. My feet moved. Moved. Kept moving.

  I stumbled. Someone grabbed me, held me up. Someone was saying something. I knew that sound. All purple. "Shim! Shim!" He was calling me

  -face hurt suddenly. Ringing. A slap. Not shim. Jim.

  Me. "Who?"

  "..Jim-!"

  "Who ... ?" I couldn't finish the thought.

  "Stay with me," the voice said. "Jim!"

  "Um ... I have to know who ... ?"

  "Who what?"

  "There was someone-I was ... someone was calling me-"

  "I was. I've been saying your name to you over and over,"

  "No, it wasn't you. It was someone else. Someone from another-" I rubbed my head. Hard. I didn't have a word for the other place. I just knew it wasn't here. "I almost... had it..."

  "Jim!"

  "If I could just.. ."

  "Jim, stay with me. Jim, look at me."

  I looked at Fletcher. Her face was red and intense. I said, "I was-fading ... wasn't I?"

  "You were gone."

  "I-I'm sorry." I blinked. I looked around. "Where are we?"

  "Market Street."

  "Market... Street... ?"

  She nodded.

  "Oh, my God. . . ." I buried my face in my hands. I was overcome. "I had no idea it was that powerful. Jeez-" I glanced back. "Are they still going?"

  "They're just breaking up."

  "Oh." There was disappointment in my voice. I could hear it myself.

  "Jim, stay here. Stay with me."

  "I am. I am."

  "What was it-? Describe it." She was forcing me to look at her. Look into her eyes. "Can you describe it?"

  "We ... don't have the words for it,. . ." I said."Um ... no, that's not right. We do have the words for it." I pointed in the direction of the herd. "They have the words. The words are...they. .."

  "Stay with me, Jim!"

  "What they're doing... it's-" I grabbed her hand. "No, don't slap me again. Let me finish this. There are ... words beyond words. I know that doesn't make sense, but it does if you've let yourself hear them." I let the thoughts come bubbling up now. They floated clearly in the midst of my... fog? No, it wasn't fog.

  I swallowed and said, "You're right. They are communicating, but they're not communicating in concept." I stopped to catch my breath, but I had to get the words out quickly, before they lost their meaning, before I lost the sense-"Over here, we talk in words. Words are concepts. Symbols. We communicate symbols. We exchange agreed-upon symbols. They don't do that. They talk in sounds. No-they talk in ... music. They make music and tune themselves to the music. They-I'm getting it. It doesn't make sense to me, but this is what I felt. They communicate in experience. They're communicating by creating experiences together and ... somehow... tuning themselves to each other ... somehow becoming the cells of a ... larger organism, the herd ... and. . ."

  Oh, God. I could see it clearly now.

  "They don't have identity any more," I said. "That's what they've given up. They've given up the ability to remember. They have no memory-and without memory, they can't have identity. The only identity they can have is the herd. They stay together for food and for sex, but mostly for identity. Oh, my God, this is a whole new kind of humanity we're looking at, isn't it!"

  The realization was terrifying.

  I was trembling. A chill swept up my spine and I shuddered. "Is there a place to sit down?" I asked. I wiped my forehead. I glanced around, confused. I felt dizzy.

  Fletcher led me to a stone bench that had somehow managed to survive the firestorm and sat me down on it. She parked herself beside me.

  "Why didn't you warn me-?" I asked; my voice croaked.

  "I didn't know," she apologized. "It affects everybody differently." Her eyes were wet.

  I looked away, I looked at the ground. The concrete had bubbled and blistered here. I swallowed hard, and admitted, "I'm feeling... very confused right now. And very upset. I feel like I've. . ." I made a frustrated face. "I feel ... ripped off. Ripped open. Ripped up. I feel like hell. I feel like-I've lost something important-" And then I let the tears come, I sobbed into my hands, and I didn't have any idea at at all what the tears were all about. I just couldn't stop crying.

  NINE

  "FEELING BETTER?" Fletcher asked. She offered me a handkerchief

  I wiped my eyes and looked up at her. "How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you resist the ... pull?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know that I do resist it. I think my way of participating is to watch. To try to understand. Because that's what I do everywhere in my life. I watch. I hold back and watch. Maybe that's why I ... can move through them the way I can."

  I handed back the handkerchief. I still felt empty. Drained. I felt as limp as a wet sweat sock. She offered me her hand and I pulled-tried to pull myself to my feet. She grabbed my elbow and lifted me off the bench. "Come on," she said. "Just walk."

  I looked at her as she guided me. The set of her mouth was firm. "Thank you," I said. We started back toward the jeep. The herd had lost is cohesiveness. The gathering was over and the members were scattering across the plaza. There were couples copulating on the dry grass of the lawn.

  I asked Fletcher, "Is it alw
ays like this?"

  She shrugged. "It varies. Sometimes they're positively frenzied. The intensity can build to such a peak we've even lost a few to heart attacks. Sometimes it's languid. This is about... average, I guess."

  "Does this happen every day?"

  She frowned. "About three or four times a week now. When it started, it was just once or twice a month. Then it began happening more and more often. Now... it's almost every other day. I expect within a month, it'll be every day. I think-and this is just a guess-but I think that it's some kind of... enrollment phenomenon. Since it started, the herd has been growing much faster than we expected. Something about the phenomenon pulls people into it-as you experienced."

  I nodded.

  She added, "And I think it also supports the members in staying in the herd. Last year, we had dropouts. We had people actually coming back. They were confused, and they needed a lot of support therapy, but they were conscious again. This year-we haven't had any dropouts. Not since this started."

  "Tell me about the dropouts," I said. "How does that happen?"

  "Um-usually some kind of shock. We had a young man break his leg. The pain was so bad that he started screaming. And suddenly in the middle of the screaming, he was calling for a doctor. His survival was at stake-he had to do something. None of the herd behavior modes were appropriate, he dredged up something from his memories. Unfortunately, for him, everything attached to that memory came with it. He had to start communicating with us to tell us where it hurt, and so on. So ... he had to be selfaware again."

  "So, that's how you can break the herd," I said. "Break all their legs.

  Fletcher laughed. "I don't think it's that easy, James. I wish it were. You can shock some of them back to self-awareness, but most of them you can't. They're aware, but they're not self-aware, and they don't want to be self-aware ever again."

  "Mm," I said. There was something about that thought that deserved a second look. My mind was already holding it up to the light, turning it over and over, looking for the implications in it and the extrapolations that could be shaken out of it.