[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

constant low-grade fever, and his appetite increased.
He could eat almost anything pine-seeds, tough grasses, moss, and lichen but
the "offerings" left for him at the cliff top made it unnecessary. He knew
Teress was bringing them, but he only went forth to pick up his supplies at
night. Should he see her, his resolve would weaken.
He searched for the massive door's sensors. Failing to find them, he plastered
the entire rear wall of the cave with wet ashes, and the radiation level
dropped. Perhaps the watchers feared that the deadly emanations would kill
their own returning compatriots, now that they could no longer ascertain who
was in the cave. The spindly boy must have seemed no threat, no match for
honches who might return at any time. They probably judged him half-dead
already.
It troubled him that he did not know when they might appear, or if they would.
How long would he have to wait? He gave it a month. But when that month came
to an end, he resolved to stay just one more day, then another . . .
Teress left notes. They had locked Yasha's treasures in the Tin Mule's storage
compartment, and Yasha slept on the rear seat from then on, sending his
"reports"' through a heater grille. Achibol reluctantly concluded that Yasha's
mind was irreparably damaged. Ameling still lived, thanks to the mage's
medications, but did not improve. Achibol sat by the fire day and night, a
taciturn shadow wrapped in ashy blankets.
"Where you at, old Fool?" The harsh voice bounced off the mud-smoothed wall,
disorienting the cave's occupant. "Why'd you hide the door? Come out. I got
something good to eat."
Honch! Only one voice. Benadek huddled within his moldy blankets, and groped
for Achibol's talisman .
. .
"Benadek! Benadek!" Teress's voice reverberated as had the honch's. "Are you
all right? We saw someone on the cliff edge, coming this way. Benadek? Benad .
. ." Her voice stopped as if strangled on her own terror. The hand that
emerged from cave-darkness gripped her wrist like a steel clamp. It was huge
and hairy, and it stretched outward from a bulky, black leather sleeve. She
struggled silently, but there was no escape from that crushing grip.
Inexorably, she was pulled into the gloom of the cave.
Her eyes darted from the craggy honch face to one, then another pool of
shadow, hoping against hope that she could catch a gleam from Benadek's eyes
or a chance reflection from the talisman, held in his hand. But there was no
gleam, no telltale motion. What she saw was a boot. A black, fit-all military
boot, still shiny after months of abusive wear. Benadek's boot. Her eyes
widened and her stomach churned as she forced herself to recognize what lay
beyond.
The frail, naked body sprawled awkwardly on blood-spattered blankets. The
gray-green cast of death was unmistakable. Benadek was dead, blotched with
black smears of already-drying blood. A calloused hand covered her face from
eyes to mouth, stifling her outcry before it began. But it did not conceal the
Page 149
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
boy's mutilated image in her mind. A rumbling basso voice reverberated in her
ear. Hot breath pushed out words that made no sense. Her name. How did the
honch know her name? "Teress!" the honch murmured softly, as if afraid he
would be overheard. "Teress, it's me, Benadek. I'm here. I'm inside this
honch. I've become him!"
That was inaccurate but it did not matter to Benadek. Only Teress mattered.
She should not have come.
She should not have seen it was not meant for her. He felt with his meaty
honch-hand as she swallowed her screams unvoiced, as she twisted to free her
covered eyes. Slowly, he released her. "It's true," he whispered.
Her eyes sought his, seeking some sign that behind that brutally handsome
honch-face was Benadek.
"I'm here," he repeated. "What you saw in the cave was a trick meant for other
eyes."
The talisman had worked fine. As the honch stumbled and fell, Benadek eased
him to the ground. Then he lay down naked and shivering next to the
unconscious figure. If he changed
, he would be far too large for his own clothing. He would be skin and bones,
with half the mass of the honch, but tall enough to shred his own garments.
Later he understood why the change had failed. There was too much difference
in size. He felt it soon after the change began a dizzying weakness, muscles
attenuating, stretching, then a deadly lethargy. As he began the plunge into
unconsciousness that could only end in death, he desperately fought his way
back to his own form, concentrating the vital energies, the precious elements
and compounds that made up his physical being.
Even as he groped for dank blankets to warm himself, he understood what had
gone wrong. In the swamp it seemed years ago, in another life entirely he had
absorbed mass and appropriate body chemicals from the foul marsh water as he
changed. But here in the cave, there was no nutrient-rich slime.
Had he thought it through more carefully, he could have changed before, added
mass to his own body, reserved kilo after kilo of proteins, lipids,
bone-calcium, and blood-iron. But he had not. He was physically himself, but
mentally still entwined with his enemy, weak and deathly cold. And the honch
was stirring.
Benadek panicked, suspended somewhere between skinny boy and hypertrophic
honch. Fear drove him where reason could not. In one immense mental heave, he
concentrated everything that was uniquely
Benadek into new, fluid molecules, complex RNA-like strands barely slim enough
to squeeze through his capillaries, and he flowed into the honch. His hands
swelled and reddened where they clutched that thick, muscular honch neck. Tiny
blood vessels ruptured as dermal cells parted and questing molecules of
Benadek made their way to the surface of his skin. Like corkscrews the tight
helical forms crossed the minuscule chasms between Benadek-skin and honch-skin
and, once across, they reburied themselves in flesh. . . .
The twisting, contorting protein-chains that were now Benadek rode
honch-blood. Unstable, their tiny, complex electrochemical charges yearning
for completion, for merger and stability, they tumbled through
honch-capillaries seeking his brain.
The nodes of Ranvier were minuscule interruptions in the axons of nerve and
brain cells, the only breaks in the myelin sheaths that isolated the seat of
consciousness from the body that supported it. Most chemicals in blood never [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]