Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

Somehow, I knew, I could interrupt and tap that flow, even if I could not understand it. And, in this new way of seeing, I realized, for the first time, just how unhuman I had become. Each cell an individual, each cell infinitely programmable, operating as a whole but not limited to it. The information for almost any order was there, the information for any transformation of any cell, group of cells, or the entire organism in fact, and while I could not understand the source of that information or the language the Wardens used to govern the cells and cellular interaction, I could speak to them, mentally, and they would respond.

When I awoke it was dawn. Things looked the same. Everything and everybody looked the same, and yet … Awake, fully conscious, I could still see, still sense the Wardens inside of me. Something very strange had in fact happened in the night I’d spent on the mountain—I had become my dream. Not the dream of the god-thing, but the dream of a new and formless creature, whose collective consciousness totally owned and controlled his body and every cell in it. The last link not only with the Confederacy but with any sort of humanity as I knew or understood it had been cut.

In a real sense, I was as alien as those terrors on the ice.

CHAPTER ELEVEN Saints Are Not Gods

The reaction to all this varied a bit with the other seven on the mountaintop, but it was clear that we had all been profoundly changed by the experience. The few who were willing to come out of the clouds and compare notes, such as Hono, Ching, and myself, found that our primary encounters with the presence, whatever it was, were quite different and highly subjective, though the discovery of our own bodies and the Wardens within was almost exactly the same.

“But what was it?” Ching wanted to know. “I mean—is it really a god?”

“Most of the others have no doubts whatsoever,” I noted, also gesturing a little for some caution. I didn’t want to start any fights over theology at this point, and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think, somehow, we were in contact with the alien mind. Or an alien mind, or something. I think their power plant and base is under here somewhere, and somehow, maybe through the Warden organism, we connected.”

“But the thoughts and pictures were so strange…”

I nodded. “That’s why we call ’em aliens. We were somehow inside a mind so different from ours, with so little in common, that we could hear each other, maybe be aware of each other, but make no real common connection. If you were born unable to see and then, for a short period, saw a picture of a forest from the air with no explanation of what it was, that would be akin to what we experienced.”

“And how we—feel—now?”

“Somehow that connection sensitized us to the Wardens. When we contacted that other mind, it was through the Wardens, somehow. And when we broke contact with it, our brains had been taught how to keep in contact with those in our own bodies. Honey, we haven’t changed a bit. Everybody on Medusa is like this. But we’re some of the very few aware of the fact.”

“Heyt Tari! Look at me!” Hono’s voice called, and we all turned and gasped at what we saw. It wasn’t Hono at all, but a beautiful, stately goddess, the epitome of grace and beauty and strength—an angel. “I just pictured this in my mind and told my body what that picture was—and I had it!”

Just like that, I thought wonderingly. As simple as that.

We spent the rest of the morning experimenting and found that there was little we couldn’t do if we willed it. Hair came and-went, sex changed and changed again in a matter of minutes, in a curious process that seemed much like stop-motion photography. What you willed you could become, and the others could watch it happen. It was, in a sense, a new art form. Even mass seemed unimportant; the Wardens not only obeyed commands, but seemed able to reduce size if needed or create more cells out of energy. To be sure, it was easier to create the new mass than to get rid of it, since getting rid of it turned out to be extremely painful, but to some it was worth the price.

Since making such changes demanded a tremendous knowledge of biology, biophysics, biochemistry, you name it—knowledge all of us lacked—it became obvious that the Wardens translated the mental visions into reality by drawing on a vast body of knowledge beyond us. Where? I wondered. Some vast, high-speed computer someplace was feeding the things. It had to be.

Was the computer in fact what we had somehow connected with the night before? An alien computer, whose programming would also be so alien and so complex it would appear to us as a godlike superbeing? It was a good theory, anyway, and a computer had to be located someplace. That, in turn, would mean that the Warden organism was not a natural thing at all, but something artificial, something introduced into the environment of the four worlds. And who but those ugly bastards out there on the ice could have done that?

So they were here, below the waters, perhaps by choice, when the first exploiter teams arrived. They hadn’t discovered the place—they had been here all along. Did that mean, then, that they could do this as well as we—or better? The combined powers of all four worlds, perhaps—shape-changing, body- switching, the power to create and destroy by sheer force of will…

But if that were true, then why the robots? Why deal with the Four Lords at all, for that matter—let alone allow them to run their clandestine war against the Confederacy? And why that dangerous game of cat-and-mouse on the ice?

The clearer things became, the muddier they became. I was fascinated by the problem and hoped to spend a lot of time on it, but only in an intellectual capacity. I was still sincere about my vow, and this was my retirement mission—although it had a wonderful payoff.

“We have talked with God, and She has made us Her angels!” Quarl whooped with pride and glee, and that seemed to be the general consensus. Only the more pragmatic Hono, a doubter to begin with and with a somewhat wider intellectual horizon than the rest, was anywhere near restrained. Yet even she was exultant with the new power, which was as good or greater than promised.

“It has occurred to me that the Elders have been here and have received this gift,” she remarked to me. “Ugly old crones, aren’t they?”

I grasped her meaning at once, for the same thought had also occurred to me. Although this ability might fade with age or lack of regular workouts, the fact was that it was almost impossible to accept those Elders’ appearances as more than theatrical facades at this point. The others, too, understood the implications, and I was glad to pounce on them.

“Think about what that means,” I warned them. “This power is to be used when necessary, and only for good, not to frighten or amuse yourself or others. You have great power, but you also have a sacred trust now. This isn’t something that can be passed on or taught. We all earned it. Now we must return to use it wisely.”

That statement sobered them a bit, as I hoped. I was anxious to leave before too much of the day was gone. New power or no, I didn’t want to cross that stretch at night with our horror-show friends out there waiting for us, and I really didn’t care to spend another night on this mountain. Once the connection had been established it would be easier the next tune, and a few of us were far enough into madness now that no added exposure was needed.

Hono picked up her spear. “We walk down, then.”

I thought a moment. “No. Maybe we don’t. Let me try a little experiment here. Be brave, and don’t be too surprised if it doesn’t work.” I looked at Ching, winked, then concentrated, drawing on my long practice of mind control and autohypnosis.

At once I began to change. I knew it, could see it, feel it, even as I willed it, and I knew that the message was adequate even as the process started.

The others, Ching included, watched in amazement at the transformation as my hunch paid off. Somewhere in that Warden computer there were the blueprints for a very large creature that flew.

“What is it?” several cried in alarm.

“How the hell do I know?” I croaked back. “But it has talons to pick up and rend prey, and it flies. Draw upon yourselves, become this thing as I did, and have a little faith. Then we’ll fly back over that cold wastel”