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_By all the laws of nature, he should have been dead. But if he were alive ... then there was something he had to find._
CULLY
By JACK EGAN
Illustrated by SCHELLING
Above him eighty feet of torpid, black water hung like a shroud ofDeath, and still he heard his ragged breathing. And something else.Cully concentrated on that sound, and the rhythmic pulsing of his heart.Somehow he had to retain a hold on his sanity ... or his soul.
After an hour of careful breathing and exploring of body sensations,Cully realized he could move. He flexed an arm; a mote of gold sandsifted upward in the dark water. It had a pleasant color, in contrastwith the ominous shades of the sea. In a few moments, he had struggledto a sitting position, delighting in the curtain of glittering metalgrains whirling around him as he moved.
And the other sound. A humming in his mind; a distant burble of tinyvoices of other minds. Words swirling in giddy patterns he couldn'tunderstand.
Shortly thereafter, Cully discovered why he still lived, breathed: asuit. A yellow, plastic, water-tight suit, with an orange-on-blackshield on the left breast pocket, and a clear bubble-helmet. He feltweight on his back and examined it: two air tanks and their regulator, aradio, and ... the box.
Suit, tanks, regulator; radio, black water, box; sand, sea, stillness.
Cully considered his world. It was small; it was conceivable; it wasincomplete.
_Where is it?_
"Where is what?" He knew he had a voice--a means of communicationbetween others of his kind, using low-frequency heat waves caused byagitation of air molecules. Why couldn't he make it work?
Words. Thousands of them, at his beck and call. What were they? What didthey mean? He shifted uncomfortably in the tight yellow suit, searchingthe near horizon for ...
_Where is it?_
* * * * *
A vague calling came from beyond the black sea curtain. Objectively,because he could do nothing to stop them, he watched his feet pick up,move forward, put down; pick up, move forward, put down. Funny. He hadthe feeling, the concept, that this action held meaning. It was supposedto cause some reaction, accomplish an act. He wondered at the regularmovement of his legs. One of them hurt. A hurt is a sensation of pain,caused by over-loading sensory-units in the body; a hurt is bad, becauseit indicates something is wrong.
Something certainly was wrong. Something stirred in Cully's mind. Hestopped and sat down on the sandy sea bottom, gracefully, like a balletdancer. He examined his foot. There was a tiny hole in the yellowplastic fabric, and a thin string of red-black was oozing out. Blood. Heknew.
He was bleeding. He could do nothing about it. He got up and resumedwalking.
_Where is it?_
Cully lifted his head in annoyance at the sharp thought.
"Go away," he said in a low, pleading voice. The sound made him feelbetter. He began muttering to himself.
"Water, black, s-sand, hurt. Pain. Radio tanks ..."
It didn't sound right. After a few minutes, he was quiet. Themanythoughts were calling him. He must go to the manythoughts.
If his foot was bleeding, then something had happened; if something hadhappened, then his foot was bleeding.
"No!"
If something had happened, then maybe other things had happened--beforethat. But how could something happen in a world of flat gold sand andflaccid sea? Surely there was something wrong. Wrong: the state of beingnot-right; something had happened that was not-right. Cully stared atthe edges of the unmoving curtain before him.
_Where is it?_
It was a driving, promise-filled concept. No words; just the sense thatsomething wonderful lay just beyond reach. But this voice was differentfrom the manythoughts. It was directing his body; his mind was along forthe ride.
The sameness of the sea and sand became unbearable. It was too-right,somehow. Cully felt anger, and kicked up eddies of dust. It changed thesameness a little. He kicked more up, until it swirled around him in athick gold haze, blotting out the terrible emptiness of the sea.
He felt another weight at his side. He found a holster and gun. Herecognized neither. Again he watched objectively as his hand pulled theblack object out and handled it. His body was evidently familiar withit, though it was strange to his eyes. His finger slipped automaticallyinto the trigger sheaf. His legs were still working under two drives:the manythoughts' urging, and something else, buried in him. A longing.Up-and-down, back-and-forth.
_Where is it?_
Anger, frustration flared in him. His hand shot out, gun at ready. Heturned around slowly. Through the settling trail of suspended sand,nothing was visible.
* * * * *
Again he was moving. Something made his legs move. He walked on throughthe shrouds of Death until he felt a taut singing in his nerves. Anirrational fear sprang out in him, cascading down his spine, and Cullyshuddered. Ahead there was some_thing_. Two motives: get there becauseit (they?) calls; get there because you must.
_Where is it?_
The mind-voice was excited, demanding. Something was out there,besides the sameness. Cully walked on, trailing gold. The death-curtainparted ...
An undulating garden of blue-and-gold streamers suddenly drifted towardhim on an unfelt current. Cully was held, entranced. They flowed beforehim, their colors dazzling, hypnotic.
_Come closer, Earthling_, the manythoughts spoke inside his head,soothingly.
_Here it is!_ Cully's mind shouted.
Cully's mind was held, hypnotized, but his body moved of its ownvolition.
He moved again. His mind and the manythoughts' spoke:fulfillment--almost. There was one action left that must be completed.
Cully's arms moved. They detached the small black box from his pack. Hemoved on into the midst of the weaving, gold-laced plants. Littlespicules licked out from their flexing stalks and jabbed, unsensed, intoCully's body to draw nourishment. From the manythoughts came the senseof complete fulfillment.
From Cully's mind came further orders.
_Lie down._ It was a collective concept. _Lie still. We are friends._
He could not understand. They were speaking words; words were beyondhim. His head shook in despair. The voices were implanting an emotion ofhorror at what his hands were doing, but he had no control over hisbody. It was as if it were not his.
The black box was now lying in the sand among the streaming plants.Cully's fingers reached out and caressed a small panel. A soundless'click' ran through the murkiness. The strangely beautiful, gold-lacedblue plants began a writhing dance. Their spicules withdrew and jabbed,withdrew and jabbed. A rending, silent scream tore the quiet waters.
_NO!_ they cried. It was a negative command, mixed in with the terriblescreaming. _Turn it off!_
"Stop it, stop it!" Cully tried to say, but there were no words. Hetried to cover his ears within the helmet, but the cries went on.Emotions roiled the water: pain, hurt, reproach. Cully sobbed. Somethingwas wrong here; something was killing the plants--the beautiful bluethings! The plants were withering, dying. He looked up at them,stupefied, not understanding, tears streaming down his face. What didthey want from him? What had he done ...
_Where is it?_
A different direction materialized; a new concept of desire.
* * * * *
Cully's body turned and crawled away from the wonderful, dying garden,oblivious to the pleadings floating, now weakly, in the torpid water. Hescuffed up little motes of golden sand, leaving a low-lying scud alongthe bottom, back to the little black box in the garden. The plants, thebox, all were forgotten by now. Cully crawled on, not
knowing why. Arise appeared; surprise caught Cully unaware. A change in the sameness!
_Where is it?_
Again the voice was insistent. His desire was close ahead; he did notlook back at the black churning on the sea bottom. His legs worked, hischest heaved, words swirled in his mind. He topped the rise.
Below him, in the center of a shallow golden bowl, floated a long, shinycylinder. Even from here he knew it was huge. He knew other things aboutit: how heavy it was; how it was; that it carried others of his kind. Hehad been in it before. And they were waiting for him. He lurched on.
"Captain! Here comes Cully!" the midshipman shouted from the airlock."Look what they've done to him!"
The old man's grey eyes took in the spectacle without visible emotion.He watched the pathetic, bleeding yellow plastic sack crawl up to theship and look up. His hands reached down and lifted Cully up into thelock.
They took his suit off and stared with loathing at what had once been aman. A white scar zig-zagged across his forehead. The Captain bentclose, in range of the dim blue eyes.
"It was a brave thing you did, Cully. The whole system will be grateful.Venus could never be colonized as long as those cannibals were there toeat men, and drive men mad." Cully fingered the scar on his forehead,and looked unseeing into the old man's compassionate eyes. "I'm sorryCully. We all are. But there was no other way. Prefrontal lobotomy,destruction of your speech center ... it was the only way you could getpast the telepaths and destroy them. I'm sorry, Cully. The race of Manshall long honor your name."
Cully smiled at the old man, the words churning in his brain; but he didnot understand.
_Where is it?_
The emptiness was still there.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.