Oblivion.
Consciousness without awareness, limited to the confinements of thought. Looking, trying to make out an object, any object, but darkness is everywhere, enshrouding, entombing—depressing the mind like the weight of a grave. To reach out in the blackness, a mental grasp, is to feel nothingness slipping through the fingers of thought. Where is the consciousness of yesterday, the foundation of knowledge?
Em made a mental turn. Oh God, where am I? What is this darkness all around? Obscurity was his answer. Still, he probed. Still he found nothing.
Shake down the robe of blackness. Light out the siege of despair. Strike off the shackles of darkness. Look out upon the relativity of existence.
The blackness lingered.
He concentrated harder. He searched in desperation. He felt fearful, helpless like a baby. He might never be able to leave this world of darkness. Trapped in the world of the unknown. There might be beings in this underworld who would want to do him harm.
He wanted to cry out, but knew not how.
And then came the grey. Fading blackness, the dark sea before the dawn, light spreading.
Rays beaming, a paradox; leaving the infinite. Becoming the relative, to observe, to experience the motion of life, to know matter separates from space, to know energy, the infinite link between . . .
The first contact with relative awareness came from sound. A vibration in the air, voices. Yes, they were voices. Low and soft, they spoke in a strange language, unknown to his scope of knowledge. Yet, he understood what they were saying. The words conveyed pictures of computers, graphs, readouts, data. The conversation was meaningless. It droned of boredom.
He willed himself to leave this world of computers, numbers, and unrest.
Suddenly there was the crashing of waves, falling upon jagged cliffs. They pounded. They rose two hundred feet and fell upon the rocks. The ceaseless pounding. The sky was dark, totally enclosed by grey, swirling clouds. Lightening shattered the night and thunder resounded and boomed upon the waves. Sympathy. He felt sympathy with the wind. It was the symphony of life. It was the power of the worlds. The wind blowing, raising the waves hundreds of feet into the air, towering above the horizon, then crashing down to boil up again. The foam and the spray being carried for miles in the torrid wind. The clouds jamming together, bringing down thunder and letting loose . . .
He felt the wind in his soul. It was his life's power. It made him feel easy. There was peace in the storm, that which was absent in the other world.
Suddenly, he heard the voices again, low and soft, sneaking into his world. There must be a way to cease their meaningless yammer.
Concentrate. Will them away.
But this time it didn't work. They became louder.
The storm faded into the background.
"Professor," said the relentless voice, "come look at the heart monitor. The heartbeat is nearly normal."
There was a pause, then movement. Somebody was walking across a metal floor.
"His recovery rate is very rapid," said another voice from somewhere out there. The voice didn't seem pleased nor displeased. The tone portrayed puzzlement and wonder. "Maybe we've been feeding him too much juice," he continued.
"Impossible," said the first voice. "The whole program has been computerized. "If we've been . . ."
"I know. I know," interrupted the second voice. "I was merely making a point that he is indeed recovering very rapidly." The voice sounded as if it wanted to say, ‘Why oh why am I surrounded by fools?’ It chuckled and then became serious.
"Maybe he is 'a' God," said the first voice. "The legend of the Aeolian Master come true."
"Surely you jest."
"Well, you're the one who gave it credence in your thesis."
"Not that there was a God. Merely that there was probably an underground complex somewhere on Ar, with the slight off chance that there might be a man, most likely dead, in a suspended animation chamber."
The first voice became a bit irritated, "Nevertheless, here we have a man, or whatever, freshly ‘off the ice,' as you would put it, and he's recovering far ahead of the computerized schedule."
"Yes," said the second voice, "and I think he's close to regaining consciousness."
"What?"
"That's right. It'll probably be a week, maybe two."
"But that's several weeks ahead of schedule, and I might add it's a schedule which the computer on board the Commander calculated."
"You already said that, but look at the readouts."
"I've looked at the readouts, and I don't understand how it's possible." There was a pause, then the second voice continued. "It's very confusing. In all my years of medical training and experience, I've never experienced anything like this."
There was a moment of silence, and then the voice continued. "Think about it. We have a man in a suspended animation chamber who is more than six hundred years old. At this point in time he should be just a pile of bones, but he's not. He's alive and healthy. And now, he's reviving faster than that which is humanly possible. To bring a man or woman out of suspended animation faster than the computerized schedule would destroy the tissues, not just the skin, but all the tissues."
"Well," said the other voice, "we'll find out more if and when he regains consciousness."
The voices continued to babble in meaningless terms.
The man lay on the elevated platform. His mind was besought with confusion. Searching for answers. But then he remembered an important concept, his body. Skeleton and muscles and blood. Yes, and other things.
Awareness with feeling. Slowly with his mind he explored his body. Suddenly he remembered his hands, tools for feeling and manipulation.
He tried moving a finger. Networks of nerves came to life. Electrical messengers stimulating chemical waves through the channels of myelination. Cells were revived. He could feel his finger, but he couldn't move it.
He put forth effort, energy. He drew from all the power he could find. He drew from the storm in the back of his mind. He exhausted all the sources, and exerted the energy in a final thrust. Straining, and finally it moved.
Exhaustion swept over his being, but next time he knew it would be easy.
The voices continued to babble as his exhausted mind slipped into unconsciousness. Time passed. How much he could not know, perhaps minutes, perhaps weeks. But as he regained consciousness he realized that his energy had been restored. Where it came from or how he didn't know, but it felt good.
Again the voices were babbling and disturbing his peace, but this time he recognized the presence of a new voice. It was quiet and dignified, and that was okay, but it also had a pitch which was hidden in the vibration of the molecules, also known as the frequency of the sound waves which Em knew was . . . 'evil'. Yes, that was the word, 'evil.' It vibrated selfishness with no thought of others. It was . . . It frightened him. He wanted to get away from this new voice. He searched for the storm, the crashing waves and the wind, a place to hide, to find peace, but it wasn't there.
The voice continued, ". . . waste of the Galactic Empire's time and money," it said. "I want you to speed up this revival process, so that we can be done with it."
"Well sir," said the first voice, "it is proceeding a lot faster than we had anticipated."
"I'll give you two more weeks, Riker, and if you're not done by then, I'll personally see you in the pits."
There was movement across the floor, and suddenly the evil was gone.
"Don't look so distraught," said another voice. "At the rate he's reviving it won't be more than a couple of days."
The voices continued while moving across the floor, and then silence.
Em was worried. The malevolent voice made him question the type of people who populated this world. He wanted to leave and re-enter the world of the wind, but he knew he couldn't, at least, not for a while. He knew there was only one thing he could do. Somehow he had to move his body to a different
location, somewhere away from these people.
He knew he could do it. He had moved part of his body once before.
He began concentrating on his musculature, and it wasn't long before he was making coordinated moves. Suddenly, and quite by accident he opened his eyes. And it was then that he remembered vision. It seemed a miracle, the perception of sight. He contemplated the physics of sight, the high-energy particles striking the optic disk in back of the eyeball, causing the optic nerve to send impulses to the brain, which interpreted these impulses into images. Images. Yes, sight was a wonderful sense, allowing a person to feel objects at a distance. Sight made him happy, and after awhile he remembered ocular movement, and he began moving his eyes from side to side.
At that moment he saw a man standing next to a door. Yes, a man and a door.
Em decided that the man must be there to keep him in the room. If he wanted to leave he would have to take the man by surprise. Move quickly and strike before the man could react.
Em started to sit up, but his brain went into shock, and he blacked out.
Time passed, and once again when he awoke he felt new and stronger, energy permeating his being. From then on he would take it for granted that spent energy returned during the unconscious period of living.
He opened his eyes and surveyed the room. No one was present except the man guarding the door.
He felt more confident as he put his muscles to the test. He wiggled his toes, his fingers. He moved his arms, his legs. He turned his head slowly from side to side. He watched all the time to make sure he didn't attract the guard's attention.
It wasn't necessary. The guard was unaware of his present surroundings. Daydreaming. He was on another world in another solar system reliving a past memory with a green eyed, green haired, big-breasted woman. It was indeed an expensive memory, a mistake that would break him in rank and pay.
The Aeolian Master ripped the electrical wires with the little pads from his arms, then sprang from the platform. His actions caused an alarm to go off, but it was too late for the guard. Before he could react Em was bouncing him off the wall, and as he hit the floor his phasor went spinning away. The guard jumped up to grab him, but Em's moves were too quick and his strength overpowering. He plucked the guard's grasping hand out of the air and bending over he tore an ankle from the floor. The guard, being nearly the size of Em, was more surprised than scared. Em lifted him over his head with ease and hurled him across the room. Upon impact the guard fell limply into unconsciousness, back to a state of dreaming. Several ribs were broken, but later that would prove to be the least of his problems.
Em turned and disappeared through the doorway. As he hurried down the hall he could hear excited voices shouting commands and footfalls racing along the hallway from behind, trying to catch up with him. They sounded like desperate men, who would do whatever they could to bring him down, to capture him and do whatever they had planned, but even with these thoughts, nothing frightened him more than the memory of that voice—that wicked voice.
The floor felt cold on his feet as he ran down the long, brightly lit hallway. Every so often there were doorways on either side with luminous lettering or numbers above them. Twice he came to hallways, which went to the left and right of the one he was in, but he passed them by, hoping that the one he was in would take him to the outside of the building.
If he could not find an exit, there would be no way for him to escape. Everything was made of metal, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. No windows anywhere, just the cold, gray metal.
The sounds from behind grew fainter as Em stretched his bare feet to the cold metal floor in a desperate search for a way out of this depressing, grey prison. Why he was here and how he got here he didn’t know, but he could sense the danger, and he knew he had to find a way out.
After another fifty strides, he could see the hall coming to a dead end with no halls leading in from the sides. It crossed his mind that he may have missed the exit by passing those other hallways, but it was too late to go back. Even though he had put a lot of distance between him and the men pursuing him, they would be upon him before he could go back and make his escape. He kept running toward the end. Why would they have a hallway ending with no exit?
With about twenty strides left to travel he saw indentations with cracks in the wall, and then he realized they were doors. There were two of them, side by side. Next to the one on the left there was a panel of buttons and lights. Next to the other there was nothing but bare metal. These had to be exits, but he didn’t know which one to take. What would the buttons do? He couldn’t take the time to think about it. They were getting closer and would be upon him in a matter of seconds.
He decided to take the door with no buttons. He stepped up to it and put his hand on the palm lock. It slid quietly open and before him there were small platforms, one on top of another. They spiraled away from him in two directions—up and down.
The visual reception quickly brought back the memory of stairs and how they were used.
He started up, taking them three at a time. He didn't know which way was out, but his intuition told him 'up.'
The stairs raced beneath his feet, and it wasn't long until he came to the final floor. The door slid open, and there before him was another brightly lit hallway. Surely this couldn't be out.
He cautiously stepped into the hall. Nervous energy filled his being. He waited for intuition to once again guide his footsteps, but this time there was none. He was in a quandary. Which way to go?
To his right the hall was only another fifty feet long and then made a sharp turn to the left. To his left there were many halls coming in from several directions. It appeared he was standing in a major corridor.
He finally decided to go right when he heard voices coming from that direction.
He turned and walked slowly toward the sounds, being careful not to make any noise. It occurred to him that they were guarding the exit.
He peered warily around the corner. There were two men standing in front of a door. They were dressed like the man he had thrown across the room. And in their hands they held objects which appeared to be weapons.
This must be the way out, he thought. And it was probable that the guards were there to keep him from leaving. Yes, they will try to stop me.
He calculated the distance to be ten paces. If their reaction time was between one and two seconds, then that would be enough time to take them down before they could use their weapons. It was the only thing to do considering his plight.
He crouched into the natural position of attack. His leg muscles rippled, taut and ready for the spring. His back and shoulders were brought forward as he bent at the waist. He could sense a tinge of fear. His long black hair spilled over his shoulders. He looked the sight of a wild man. He certainly was the opposite extreme of a God.
Now his adrenalin flowed steadily. His eyes took on a strange look, almost a glassy sheen, dulling the blueness of the pupils. He sprang from the hunter's position. And in six swift bounds he was upon them. He moved so fast they had no time to react. First he went for their weapons, grabbing one in each hand, he jerked them free and hurled them down the corridor. By this time the two guards had recovered from their shock. They attempted to go into the situ defense, to wait for the right moment, then to strike out killing their unexpected foe, but it was too late. Em had already grabbed them by their necks. He brought his arms together in a mighty heave, slamming them face-to-face, chest-to-chest. He let go, and they fell unconscious to the floor.
He may have broken their noses and maybe some ribs. He felt bad, but after all, they worked for the evil voice, and they stood between him and freedom.
He stepped over their bodies and through the doorway. He came into a room and on the other side he found two more doors. Again, one with a panel of lights and buttons and the other without.
He stepped up to the one without, put his hand on the palm switch, as the door slid open he moved i
nto the stairwell.
The stairs seemed endless as he raced upward. This time he hoped he would come to the out, and then he would find safety, a place to hide from the evil.
He climbed the stairs quickly thinking about his birth—the time when he became conscious of living in this world. There were three voices, two that seemed friendly, and one that was insidiously hostile. What was this world all about? He felt that he was suddenly born into a hostile environment with no help coming from those who gave him birth.
A picture flashed into Em's mind. He saw the two guards lying on the floor, unconscious with blood trickling from their noses. He felt bad. He didn't want to hurt anybody, but he had to get away, he had to find freedom in this strange world. What difference could it make to any of these men if he left this world of metal walls?
His mind leapt back into the present when the stairway came to an open landing. He rushed into full view of two more men. In back of them he could see a door, probably the final door, the door to the outside. But these guards had seen him, and he didn't have time to jump them.
One of the guards was quicker than the other. He drew his weapon and fired.
A bright blue beam hit Em full in the chest. The force of the beam hurtled him backward, causing him to roll violently down the steps, his flesh hitting sharp corners. When he finally came to a stop, he was lying face down with his head, chest and arms on the landing platform between the floors and his feet pointing up the stairs. Blood was flowing from a deep cut on his forehead and dripping onto the metal beneath him. His muscles were paralyzed, and he had no feeling in his arms and legs.
"Who or what the hell was that?" asked the guard who hadn't fired.
"I don't know, but you better get on the com and call it in."
"Right." The guard pulled out a communicator and started talking.
Em couldn’t see them, but he could hear them, and he heard one of the guards talking as if he were talking to a machine—he could hear the guard’s voice, but he couldn’t hear an answer from anyone.
The other one walk to the top of the stairwell.
“Keep your phasor trained on him,” said the other guard as he walked over and joined the one at the top of the stairwell.
“Why? He’s down in a state of stun, and he won’t be feeling anything for another six hours.”
“Right. Who do you think he is?”
"I don't know. Did you call it in?"
"Yeah, they said they'd send someone down."
Em almost lost consciousness but he concentrated on the voices. He could feel a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers. He was slowly regaining the use of his muscles. He tried moving his hand. It was difficult, but he managed a slight wiggle.
The guards were still at the top of the stairwell when one of them said in an astonished voice, "Look, he moved."
The other one sounded doubtful. "He couldn't have moved. I have my stunner set on quarter power."
"No, he moved," said the guard hurriedly. "I saw him move."
“Look,” said the other guard. "Quarter power, that's enough to bring down a Chaision Lion."
"I don't care. I saw him move."
"I don't see him moving now. Let's go down and pull him up to the hallway."
"Alright, but I saw him move."
"Not possible. Right now his whole body is paralyzed, and he's stunned out of his mind. I was stunned at one eighth power once, and it was twelve hours before I started getting any feeling back."
The two guards each grabbed an ankle and began pulling him up the stairs. By now the blood had stopped flowing from the cut in his forehead, and the feeling in his body had nearly returned to normal.
He waited for the right moment. He continued to play limp. His body felt the pain of the metal scraping his skin as he was pulled up the steps. His ear caught on a sharp corner and started bleeding. The pain was intense, but the time was not right. It was too chancy. If he moved too soon, another bolt of blue would send him sprawling down the steps again.
The guards finally got him to the hallway. They let go of his legs. Then one of them bent down and grabbed Em by the arm in an attempt to turn him over for a better look. But the guard would never get his look.
Em sprang to his feet, muscles rippling and taut. The bewildered look on the guard's face didn't have time to turn to one of frustration. He was hurled head first into the other guard, and they both went sprawling to the floor. Em leaped over their struggling bodies and slammed his hand against the palm switch. As the door slid open he shot up the last flight of stairs and out into the night. His eyes hadn't had time to adjust to the darkness and, in his flight, he didn't see the bush. His outstretching leg was stopped short, and he went tumbling to the ground, landing on the soft spongy grass.
He quickly got into a crouched position, watching for the guards.
He waited, but they didn't come.
With his eyes now accustomed to the dark, he rose and tread softly away from the domed stairwell. In his childlike ignorance it hadn't crossed his mind to wonder why the guards didn't come after him. It merely was.
He stepped out from beneath a tree, and looking up he noticed for the first time, the stars above in the cloudless night,—little lights flashing their intensity of illumination—gaining, then fading, then gaining again.
His whole being thrilled at the sight of them. Somewhere in his brain neurons flashed into operation for the first time in more than six hundred years. Electrochemical messages began to bounce around, bounding back from neurons yet to be awakened. He suddenly felt an affinity for the stars. He loved them. He wanted to touch them, to grab them out of the air. His arm moved automatically. His hand stretched out, groping the air, but he couldn't feel them. Then he realized they were too far away.
He lowered his arm and stared at them. Why were they so far away? The question, and the answer came quickly. He remembered the planets, the suns, the solar systems, and the galaxies. He remembered the distances and the infinite reaches of space. And then he remembered it was urgent for him to travel to one of these stars. It was of the utmost importance, but for what reason, he couldn't recollect.
Finally he turned his gaze to his surroundings. He noticed the tall buildings in the skyline. More neurons came to life. Yes, he remembered. It was a city composed of tall buildings with little lights glaring at random, shining with all their glory, telling him that he was alive, and that he had come from another world to . . . He couldn’t remember. He looked around. Perhaps good people lived here. He would try to find them.
He stepped from the grass onto a smooth plastic material which felt warm and silky to his feet. He looked up at luminescent streetlights arcing out from the buildings. It was easy to see where he was going. Still, he wasn't in a hurry. He was sure the uniformed men were far behind him, and were no longer a threat. He could sense it.
He started down the street and hadn't gone far when he heard a loud, shrill noise coming from around the corner. The noise he knew was an indication of something. He stopped for a moment. Yes, it was a scream. It was usually emitted by a person in some kind of trouble. Sometimes it was emitted by a man, and sometimes by a woman. This time it sounded like a woman.
It occurred to him that he should help her. His intuition didn’t tell him why, but he knew it had to be done.
He hurried around the corner in the direction of the scream knowing he could help whoever it was that feared some danger. Not more than thirty feet from him was a woman crouching in panic-stricken horror with her hands clasped to her chest. She was shaking her head back and forth as if she couldn’t believe it was happening. Her face was askew. Tears were running down her checks. Her arms and legs were tense with fear, paralyzed. She couldn't move.
He knew she was ready for death. He didn't fully understand the situation nor the term 'death.' It was merely a negative abstract state of being, but he could sense her horror, and he knew she didn't want it to happen.
From above an object was hurtling out of the sky. An aura of intense waves of red emanated from the cold, metallic body. He remembered red meant danger.
This must be the object that horrified the woman, an object bringing death.
These thoughts and observations rushed through his mind in a fraction of a second. He must act quickly or it would be too late.
Chapter Twenty-One