consciousness. Something, it realized, is wrong. What? The failing program was a constant danger. . .
.
After a time of riding they dismounted to let their mounts rest and feed from a great clump of tall, red-flowered grass. Demogorgon gesticulated a series of camp seats and they made themselves at home. The thers demonstrated their peculiar method of gathering food, revealing a set of scythelike claws on the hoof of the third leg with which they sliced down the weed and carried it to their delicate mouths. For all intents, the goal the adventurers had set themselves was no nearer, although the dais they had started from was long disappeared behind them. The white path continued onward.
Demogorgon stood finally and, for perhaps the thousandth time, scanned the blank horizon. The land had grown a bit rockier, showing gray outcroppings from the dry mud here and there. As he turned he was astounded to find a wet concrete wall before him. Deja vu assailed him. . . .
Achmet Aziz el-Tabari was sixteen years old and the world was Paris Free City. The Family was here and he the scion, fading stars of obsolete 3V screen and antiquated stage. They dreamed their dreams of the past and practiced a dying art to no avail, hopeless for the future, beautiful in wastage and decay. He wandered the dark streets and became trapped within himself.
Three men had him in an alley. They were tall and heavy and very dark, bestial, a rough gutter argot their only tongue. They laughed as they stripped him and smiled as they fingered his slim, brown flesh. ' Ce putanne, trop de ant-zaftig!' said one, running rough fingers over his hairless chest, pinching sharply at his nipples. 'Il-y-estparfait, ma soeur ,' said another, cupping a broad palm across one slim buttock. They turned him over then and set him across the edge of some concrete stairs. They were about to begin their complex deed. Achmet gasped finally and said, 'Wait. . . .' Unaccountably, they waited. 'Not this way.' He knelt before one of the men and began fumbling at the front of his trousers.
The man laughed and said, 'Ca c'est maricon !' The others giggled. He was unclean. It was a great, sticky thing that burst out at him, but he did it anyway, trying to preserve himself. The man smiled mindlessly and was clean when he was done. The creature patted him on the head and moved away. The others seized him then and threw him back across the stairs, despite his cries of protest, and used him as they would, one at each end. When they were done, they left him in the darkness and he wandered off, burning.
Not the first time, not the last. Usually he sought them out, nicer denizens of the better-lighted places, but sometimes they caught him like this. Forces impelled him to go on. He could not remain in the safe sterility of the Home.
He walked on.
Two years older, he sat in his studio, staring at a half-finished canvas. Sleet drizzled out of a gray November sky, splashing, freezing in strata on the dirty-paned skylight, an artifact put there for men who pretended to a filthy grandeur almost two centuries gone. They recovered the past, pretension their game, goal, and reward.
The painting waited, castles and sky in the background, green forest to the sides, animal in the foreground. It was not the stuff of great art, by any means, but it satisfied him to try to create a scenario from his fantasies. Before him, on a green-carpeted floor, sat a stuffed tiger. He muttered to himself. Alia was, as usual, quite late.
The door opened and she came in, clad in white linen pajamas. She undressed quickly, long blond hair flashing to her moves, and, slim-hipped, went to sprawl on the tiger. She said nothing and was not apologetic. Models do as they please and the world lives up to their expectations. Achmet sighed. Her hair was matted again. He picked up a little soft-bristled hairbrush that he kept just for her and came forward. He teased the hair, pulling out the knots with care, casting away the white dandruff encrustations. Was it acoincidence that someone so beautiful should be so unconcerned for her appearance? Women could be such disgusting creatures.
She cuffed at his hand, giggling, and, when he continued to brush at her, moved her hips suggestively. He coughed and went back to his easel suddenly. She continued to titter long after he had set the carburetor on the brush and begun to paint.
Two years older, he lay in the semidark of his midnight bedroom, reading about the Peloponnesian Wars. His nameless lover slept at his side, snoring through half-open soiled lips. The face looked bruised with the summation of prolonged lust. The boy, whoever he was, looked like an injured child, his soft blond hair curling about his nape in tiny wisps and strands. He felt a renewed stirring, somewhere deep within, but ignored it. Enough was, he supposed, enough.
He turned the page of the book and a name jumped off at him out of context: Demogorgon. Ah! It was evocative and moved into him instantly, nestling deep within his psyche. Now that was more like it!
He'd been casting about for a name for years and never found a satisfactory one. His generation put classical Greek cognomens in vogue and their subculture moved throughout the free cities of the world at a constant level. They were a world society, almost strangled under the growing weight of the rules, but surviving handily in these little pockets of antiquity.
He had a name. Now he needed a design.
Sighing, he put down the book and turned to sprawl across the boy, who continued to snore gently. No sense waking him up.
He turned him carefully over onto his stomach and parted his legs, felt the soft flesh of his buttocks, and found his place, still ready. He eased within and paused, feeling the dark heat with gratitude. He moved, and fell away
