Chapter Sixteen
Earther life was idmaged for symmetry according to the Dreen ideal, but also with a discordant asymmetry. The symmetry of two eyes, two arms and two legs conflicts with asymmetry: one side of the face different from the other, one arm longer, one foot larger and so on. This can only be a source of other discords as life seeks to find symmetry in the midst of asymmetry.
—The Habiba Commentary
From the bordello, with Ryll choked into dizzy remoteness by the effects of bazeel and Earther lovemaking, Lutt took their shared body back to the Enquirer, hiring a “House of Health” attendant to drive them.
Ryll felt that he cowered in this body, weak and unable to do anything except record vague sensations of the flesh through Lutt’s responses. Those awful mirrors! And not just in the ceiling but folding out of the walls. The grunting, thrusting, sweaty performance—how utterly disgusting … except at the very end. What an oddly pleasant sensation.
Wrapped tightly in his cape, Lutt stretched out on the wide seat, muttering.
“Gotta wrie t’marra’s edi … editor’l. Crissakes! I shunt be drunk on th’ li’l bitta wine I had wi’ dinner!”
Barely in control of consciousness, Ryll held his silence, fearing tricks his bazeel-fogged mind might play on him. Lights in buildings they passed jiggled and danced to unheard music.
Not caring what the driver might overhear, Lutt said: “Hacum we’re so drunky, Ryll baby?”
When Ryll did not reply, Lutt became belligerent. “I’m talkin’ t’ you, baby.”
The driver spoke over one shoulder: “Sir?”
“Not talkin’ t’ you! Talkin’ to him!” Lutt pounded himself on the chest.
The driver faced forward and concealed a grin until he was sure Lutt could not see it.
“So you’re gonna play dumb, huh?” Lutt demanded. He pinched their left ear. “Ouch! Tha’ turts!”
“Sir, would you like me to stop someplace for a detox?” the driver asked.
“You jus’ drive us t’ the Enqui … Enquirer. Crise! Wha’ was in tha’ wine?”
At the Enquirer, Lutt turned the limo over to a phototeam driver with orders to park it and send the “House of Health” attendant home with a large tip.
Employees tried not to look at him as he staggered down a long hallway past antique signs that said “Composing Room,” “Press Room” and “Proofreaders.” Recorded sounds of a press rumbled in the building and synthetic scents of an antique newspaper plant wafted on the air.
“I like all th’ ol’ stuff,” Lutt told Ryll. “Smell ’at? We pipe’t in: prin’er’s ink, dus … dust, newsprin’, bad coffee an’ sta … stale san’wiches.”
Lutt stopped and put a palm to each side of his mouth, concentrating on clear speech.
“Stale ambience.” He dropped his hands. “Tha’s wha’ I call it.” The “it” came out with a hiccough.
He launched himself into motion and made it to his office, collecting bruises from collisions with walls and doorways.
Lutt’s office appeared to Ryll like the control room of a primitive Earther spaceship. Large panels displayed pages on demand. A keyboard projected from one wall with a contour chair in front of it. The arms of the chair held buttons for the selection of mode—editing, review scanning, new material … Lutt slumped into the chair and ordered caffeine. When a copyboy brought it, he gulped the liquid, belched and bent over the keyboard.
Ryll, temporarily resigned to the role of observer, watched words appear on the screen and sampled Lutt’s thoughts. Despite the senior Hanson’s objections, Lutt obviously was determined to stir up emotions and increase the Enquirer’s circulation, making the business even more profitable.
The editorial called for creation of a city-county Housing Authority to promote ways of improving the lives “of those unfortunate wretches clinging to the shadows of our lives.”
Now, to incite pressure for Mother to serve on the commission! Lutt gloated. I’ll do it secretly.
Ryll soon tired of the observer role and, strength returning, reflected on the bordello experience. Toloma, Lutt’s favorite, had been a surprise—at least fifty years old and with hair a garish henna-red. Lutt’s memories said she had known the senior Hanson for more than thirty years. The old man had brought Lutt to her on his fifteenth birthday, saying:
“Break him in, Tolly.”
What a confused and convoluted person you are, Lutt, Ryll intruded.
“Stay out of it when I’m writing editorials!” Lutt barked.
Don’t say these things aloud! Someone might hear.
“Then shut up!”
Ryll lapsed into sullen remoteness.
Toloma definitely was a surprise, as was Lutt’s reaction to her, telling her: “You’re my best friend, Tolly.”
Toloma had shown astonishment. “You don’t mean that.”
“Sure I do.”
Ryll-observer had found it more pleasant to sample Lutt’s memories and avoid the immediate fleshly involvement. Hanson Senior’s attitudes shocked Ryll. The old man had told his son before the first visit to Toloma that Hanson men had to become buddies the way military companions did.
“Where’s the war?” Lutt had demanded.
“It’s against women, boy! Don’t you see that?”
Once more, Ryll intruded on Lutt’s work: Your father’s sick and it must be contagious. You’ve caught it, too.
Lutt took his hands off the keyboard and leaned back into the chair. Listen to me, you Dreen prude! Next time you interfere with my work, I’m going to run down the hall shouting: “There’s a Dreen in my head!”
You wouldn’t!
How long before it gets back to the Zone Patrol?
They’re sure to have spies here!
Right. Now stay out of it!
Lutt returned to his writing.
A subdued Ryll returned to his private thoughts, wondering if the Dreen idmager of Earth might have been mentally ill. There was no doubt about aberration in Lutt. While making love to Toloma, Lutt had engaged in a waking dream, pretending the woman with him was his faceless “Ni-Ni.”
Similarities between Lutt’s waking dream and Dreen idmage projection techniques did not escape Ryll. Was there useful knowledge in this fantasy “Ni-Ni”? Who was the mysterious “other man” Ni-Ni was supposed to love? Why couldn’t Lutt see her face and identify his rival? It was the stuff of nightmares. Where did insanity stop and sanity begin?
Dreen primary school warnings about merging flesh haunted Ryll. Bits of his lessons suggested separation might be achieved by adapting a Spiral ship’s equipment but none of this assured success. Stories from the few who had merged and separated shared a common comment:
“The way in is the way out?”
Whatever that was supposed to mean! Ryll felt ever more hopeless about his situation. Take over the body and risk being identified as a Dreen? Did he dare?
Lutt finished his editorial, unfolded a cot from a wall, stretched out and dimmed the lights, preparing to sleep.
That editorial will anger your father, Ryll intruded.
It won’t make Mother happy, either. Now, let me sleep.
Ryll felt his flesh-partner drift into sleep and dreaded the dreams that might come. What an evil creature this Lutt was. No gratitude at all about being saved. He didn’t care about others, only about his own desires.
If I can separate us, he’ll die. Why doesn’t he suspect?
Ryll returned in memory to the deck of his Spiral ship, that first awakening after the crash and the subsequent merger of bodies. He remembered cellular intrusion into a shattered body.
The way in is the way out?
Ryll asked himself if it might be possible to idmage their body smaller than the present one, reducing it precisely by the amount of Lutt’s commandeered flesh.
Ryll swiveled his eyes inward and began the idmage formula for a new human body but encountered immediate resistance. Even while asleep, Lutt projected a powerful will to live.
He is attempting to survive by preventing my idmage efforts!
As he prepared himself for a new attempt, Ryll felt Lutt awaken.
“So you didn’t believe my warning?” Lutt demanded. “Okay, baby. Today, we go hang gliding.”
Lutt! Don’t! I was—
“I know what you were doing. And after I warned you, too.”
Ryll retreated into his private consciousness, resolved to increase his idmage strength by reviewing every school-day lesson he could recall.
Oh … why didn’t I pay more attention?
And this hang gliding venture could be fatal!
Ryll tried to remember the lessons on how to escape from a merged body that was dying. Parts of it came through daydreams about commanding his own ship in the Spirals but there were frustrating gaps. The instructor’s words mingled with Ryll’s own dreaming commands to the fantasized ship.
He felt a sudden anger at Lutt.
This Earther is being cavalier with my body!
“I smell that interesting smell,” Lutt whispered.
Ryll ignored this. Anger and fear had cut through some of the frustrating memory gaps. The instructor had been talking about how to escape a combined life form at death, even though trapped in it during its life.
“You dare not act too soon or too late” The words burned into Ryll’s memory.
But what was too soon or too late? Did it require regaining his own mass or shifting to another fleshly mass?
Memory provided no answer and he could feel Lutt’s gloating confidence.
Privately, Ryll thought: It’s my body, damn you! Mine! You’re the alien intruder.