Veil

'To bring you back with me,' Veil replies simply. 'I thought you understood that.'

Pilgrim opens his eyes, dreamily shakes his head. 'No, Veil.'

'Your wound is serious, but you'll live—if you want to.'

'I know. But why bother? There are too many illusions back there.'

'This is an illusion!' Veil snaps, his voice ringing out as deep chimes that echo in the gray, swirling mist of the walls. He takes a deep breath, continues more quietly. 'It's just an instant before death, a moment you and I have managed to stretch out. Full of illusions or not, life is what being human is about, not this giddy bullshit. When your body dies, the lights here go out and you're gone. Then you'll be nothing, Jonathan; nada.'

'We don't know that,' Pilgrim says in a somewhat defensive tone.

'Know it, Jonathan. Believe it. Sharon's right; this experience is just a momentary painkiller to help some of us, and maybe all of us, along the way when the time comes to die. Your problem is that you got hooked. Don't throw your life away. Come back.'

Pilgrim again closes his eyes, says nothing.

'You can fight it, Jonathan,' Veil continues softly. 'You did it once before; you fought like no human being had ever fought before. My God, nobody had ever been this deep into death, beyond that flash of light, and returned. You did, because at that time you understood that life is all there is. Now I want you to use the same will and guts you had then. I understand that you wanted me here. Okay, I came; I'm here. Now let's stop horsing around and both get back to where we belong. Sharon has to bring me back, because she had to fill me full of shit to get me here. All you have to do is will yourself to wake up. Do it.'

'You don't understand, Veil,' Pilgrim says dreamily. 'Here I'm a whole man. I have all my pieces, and I'm not half exhausted all the time. I'm happy here. Aren't you?'

'Sure—but then, I tend to be a happy drunk. The difference between you and me is that I know when I'm drunk.'

'You were pretty damned impressed with this experience a short while ago,' Pilgrim says. His voice, his music, is suddenly bitter. 'Why are you belittling it now?'

'I'm not belittling it, Jonathan. I haven't forgotten that the only reason I'm alive right now is because my cry for help somehow echoed through this place to you. I find the experience profoundly moving. I'm just trying to get you to see all that it is—and isn't. Sharon and I have a better fix on this geography than you do.'

'There's love here. And Peace.' Pilgrim's voice has once again become distant and dreamy. His upper body sways back and forth, as if caught in a breeze only he can feel.

'Maybe that's because you're a loving, peaceful man, my friend. It might be different for other people.'

'I'm so tired back there, Veil . . . I'm tired all the time.'

'I understand. But if you stay here, you're going to end up dead tired, in the most literal sense. This is one nap that's going to last forever. Your work isn't finished; in fact, it's just begun.'

'So . . . tired.'

'Well, you'll have plenty of time to sleep when you wake up, in a matter of speaking. You've found the Lazarus Gate, found a way to go through it and—I sincerely hope—survive. Together we haven't even begun to explore the implications for humanity. This is certainly no time for you to retire.'

'Your . . . work now.'

'No way, Jonathan. Don't try to lay off your responsibility on me. I'm a painter, remember? In fact, I don't think I'll ever do another dream-painting, because I understand now that they're about death. There are other things I want to do, subjects that are about living.' Veil pauses and smiles gently at the other man. 'If you'll pardon another atrocious pun, I've learned enough about death in the past few days to last me a lifetime. Please come back with me.'

Pilgrim does not return the smile. 'Good-bye, Veil,' he says softly, then abruptly turns and walks into the mist to Veil's left.

Although Veil now suspects that the walls that he has always feared to look at may actually be death, boundaries around a last thread—corridor—of existence, he now unhesitatingly turns and peers directly at the spot where Pilgrim has disappeared. Then he steps through.

Instantly he is assailed by chimes of every conceivable pitch and timbre, sounds that swirl within his head, chest, and stomach like the gray in the walls. This is not the music of speech; always, he thinks, these chimes have meant danger. He knows that he is in grave danger now, but it is impossible for him to make any emotional connection with the concept of danger; he can only sense and note it intellectually, for he is filled with ecstasy to the point where he is actually weeping with joy.

Around him is nothing but solid gray—except for Jonathan Pilgrim, who stands before Veil with his body glistening like dew at sunrise.

Both of them, Veil thinks, are but a glimpse out of the corner of the eye away from death.

'It's an ocean,' Pilgrim says in a hoarse whisper that is filled with awe. 'Everything in the universe exists in the ocean, but human beings are so heavy that we're powerless to do anything but spend our lives trudging along the bottom.' He sobs with ecstasy. 'Except in dreams and death.'

'Jonathan, there's nothing here. Nothing.' He will not yield to it.

'Only as we approach death do we begin to rise toward the surface. It's so sad, Veil. So sad.'

Danger. Danger.

'Veil,' Sharon whispers in his ear, 'I love you.'

Veil turns and finds Sharon, naked and unutterably beautiful, standing at his side.

Danger.

'It's so easy to say that here,' the woman continues. 'I love you, I love you.'

Pilgrim begins to dance, whirl, and giggle. Veil will not yield to it. Sharon reaches for him, but Veil steps away a short distance.

'What's happened, Sharon? Why are you here?'

'What?' Sharon giggles. 'Did you think I was going to let you two guys have all the fun? After all, you're walking around in my field; I'm a professional, and you two gentlemen are just dilettantes. I was back there watching the two of you with your matching grins and brain-wave patterns, and I just decided there was no way I was going to be left out.'

Danger.

'How did you get here, Sharon?' He will not yield to the giddiness that pounds at his stomach, making him want to howl with laughter.

Sharon shrugs and again grabs for Veil, who again steps out of the way. 'Henry's maintaining us,' Sharon says, cocking her head and smiling coyly at Veil as she cups her breasts. 'He came in a few minutes after I put you under; he said that Jonathan had given him a key to the cable car after the meeting, and he'd come over to check on Jonathan's condition. Everything's all right. Really. It turns out that the procedure can be simplified. I explained to Henry what was happening, and what I wanted him to do. He's a physician, so he's as qualified to run that equipment as I am. The anesthesia and drugs are being automatically monitored. All Henry has to do is read dials and flip a switch in five minutes.' She pauses, spreads her arms out to her sides, throws her head back, and utters a shrieking laugh. 'Voila! Here I am, guys! What a trip!'

Veil turns to Pilgrim, who shrugs and flashes a broad grin.

'Uh-oh,' Pilgrim says, and giggles.

Definitely endomorphins, Veil thinks, painkilling chemicals a hundred times more powerful than morphine, naturally produced by the brain, coursing through their systems.

'Come to me, Veil,' Sharon whispers. 'Make love to me.'

'You're a dead duck, buddy,' Jonathan says, 'so you may as well enjoy what's left of the ride and oblige the lady. Go for it.'

Pilgrim is right, of course, Veil thinks. Ibber does not have to bring him back to find out what is happening, for the KGB agent now has all the data he needs to enable the Russians to duplicate the experiment. He is indeed one dead duck, probably with only a few moments of life left to him while Ibber double-checks the dial readings and drug mixtures, and perhaps runs some simple blood tests.

Then Ibber will take care of some other business. He will destroy all the files. He will destroy the hospice. He