Fear That Man

  FEAR THAT MAN

  by

  Dean Koontz

  * * *

  ONE: PURPOSE

  And ye shall seek a new order of things...

  I

  When he woke from a featureless dream of silver, there was nothing but endless blackness on three sides, a blackness so intense that it almost coughed out a breath and nearly moved. And when he woke, he did not know who he was.

  The control console-splashed with sixteen luminous dials, scopes, a dozen toggle switches and half a hundred varicolored buttons-told him that this thing under and behind him was a spaceship. That, at least, explained the darkness through the viewplate that wrapped around the other three sides of the guidance nipple. And his misty reflection on the thick plastiglass told him that he was a man, for he had the eyes of a man (blue), the face of a man (severe, but handsome, topped by a tangle of coal dusted hair). But these things were generals. When he tried to concentrate on specifics, there were no answers.

  Who was he?

  The dials only wavered in answer.

  What had been his past?

  Only the scopes, pulsating...

  And where was he bound?

  He sat very still, running through all the things that he did know. This was the year 3456. He knew the names of the cities; he understood the function and order of the empire; the past history of the galaxy was at his tongue tip, quivering. Generals, all.

  Who was he? What had been his past? And where was he bound?

  He unbuckled and pushed himself from his contour-molded seat, walked behind it, away from the viewplate and toward the rear of the chamber.

  Grayness. The room was tomblike, a single-hued conformity of leaden plating, machines, and service stands. Only the glow from the control console added a note of liveliness. Circling the room, he found there was no written log. There was a service stand for that purpose, but it was empty. The logtapes brought only great thunders, crashing and scraping until he was no longer so very certain that there should be a log. After all, if he could not remember his own name, how could he be so damnably sure of these lesser things?

  Bong-bong-bong!

  He whirled, his heart racing wildly in response to the alarm. Waves of yellow light crashed across the room, splashed off the dark walls. He swallowed the lump in his throat, walked back to his chair. He seemed to know how to operate a ship, for his fingers flew across the switches and dials, touched the scopes and traced patterns on them as his mind automatically sifted through the readings they gave, interpreting them. "Report!" he said to the vessel.

  There was a moment of silence, then: OBJECT APPROACHING. SPEED NEGLIGIBLE. UNNATURAL.

  "Size?"

  The ship grumbled as if clearing its throat. He knew, somehow, that it was only seeking an answer tape. THREE FEET BY TWO FEET BY FIVE FEET.

  "Time to contact?"

  FOURTEEN MINUTES.

  "Call me then." He flipped off the computer comline and went to the rear of the cabin. Rather than sit and wait for the speck, he would investigate the rest of the ship. It might hold a clue to his identity. He tugged at the circular wall hatch, swung it inward. Beyond lay a corridor, narrow and low-ceilinged. At the end of it, he knew, lay a room of shielding before the drive chamber. Along the sides were two rooms that he could enter without being burned to death by hard radiation.

  In the room to the right, there was a complete laboratory. Long rows of glittering machines lined the walls, humming, chanting to themselves. In the very center of the chamber, there was a table with a flexoplast top. He touched the mattress and watched while the shimmering stuff squeezed his hands, pushed between his fingers, gripped him. It was a surgeon’s table. Above it, suspended from the ceiling like bloated spiders, were the robosurgeons-spherical, many-armed, silver-fingered. He shivered. On the third try, he freed his hand from the table, walked into the hall. He did not entirely trust machines like the robosurgeons-machines that were so much like men but without the mercies, faults, or thoughts of men.

  The room across the corridor was an armory. Crates of construction explosives sat on the floor, enough to level a city. There were racks of guns on the walls. Vaguely, he knew there were no guns in the world any more. Men of this age did not kill anything but game animals. Guns were mainly for collecting. But these were too new for collecting, and deep within he knew he possessed the ability to use each of them-and to a deadly intent. Against the far wall and next to the cargo portal sat a ground car, broadcasting nubs studding it. With its invincible shield turned on, it was, in effect, another weapon.

  There was something bothering him, something more than the mere presence of weapons. Then, as he gazed at the ground car, he knew what it was. Nothing here carried a trade name! The car was void of brand, model, and make. So were the rifles and the throwing knives-and the explosives. All of these things had been produced to provide anonymity for their maker. But who had made them? And for what purpose?

  Bong-bong-bong!

  At first, he ignored the ship’s alarm, trying to think. But the ship grew more insistent. He put back the rifle he had been examining and left for the control room.

  UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT APPROACHING. CLARIFICATION IN THIRTY SECONDS. The computer’s squawk-box grated the words out like sandpaper drawn across sandpaper. CLARIFICATION. IT IS A MAN.

  "A man? Out here without a ship?"

  THERE IS A HEARTBEAT.

  * * *

  II

  Like a grotesquely misshapen fruit, the body in the red jumpsuit floated in the blackness, directionless, moving with a slight spin that brought all sides of it into view.

  UNCONSCIOUS.

  He brought the ship in as close as possible, studied the crimson figure. What was a man doing this far from a ship, alone, in a suit that could not support him for more than twelve hours? "I’m going to have him brought in," he said to the ship.

  DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD?

  "He’ll die out there!"

  The ship was silent.

  Like small animals, his fingers moved. A moment later, the cylindrical body of the Scavenger appeared in the viewplate. It was another almost-alive machine. He tensed with the sight of it. The single eye of the Scavenger focused on the body. On the console screen, there was a close-up of the stranger. The lens caught the face inside the helmet, and he was no longer sure it was a man.

  There was a face with two eyes, but no eyebrows. Where the brows should have been, there were two bony ridges, hard and dark and glistening. A mane of brown hair streaked with white lay as a cushion about the head. The mouth was wide and generous, but definitely not the mouth of a man. The lips were a bit too red, and the teeth that stuck over them at two places were sharp, pointed, and very white. Still, it was more of a man than an animal. There was a look about the face that suggested soul-tortured agony, and that was very human indeed. He directed the Scavenger to begin retrieval.

  When the machine had done this and was locked in place on the mother ship, he opened the floor hatch, drew up the body, and carefully unsuited it. The helmet bore the stenciled name HURKOS...

  ... He was in a great cathedral. The red tongues of candles flickered in their silver holders.

  Belina was dead. No one died any longer, but Belina was dead. A rare case. The monster in her womb had slashed her apart. Nothing the doctors could do. When you can’t turn to blame other men, there is only one entity to blame: God. It was difficult finding a temple, for there were not many faithful these days. But he had found one now, complete with its holy water tainted with the sacrificial blood and its handful of ancient Christians-ancient because they refused the man-made immortality of the Eternity Combine: they grew old.

  In the great cathedral...

  In the great cathedral, clambering across
the altar railing and clutching the feet of the great crucifix. On the kneecap, slipping, falling to the feet three times until the bruises blackened his arms beneath the thickly matted hair. Then, grasping at the loincloth, fingers hooked into the wooden folds, pulling himself up, weeping... A foot in the navel, shoving up... screaming into the ear... But the ear, after all, was wooden. The ear merely cast back his condemnations.

  Candles flickered below.

  He began swaying, using his weight to topple God. The head did not respond at first. He locked his arms more tightly about it. It began to sway. The head fell, crashing from the shoulders, down...

  Then toppled the body.

  He pushed away from it as it-and he-fell.

  There were sirens and hospital attendants.

  The last thing he remembered seeing was an old man, a Christian, cradled between the broken halves of God’s face, mumbling and content with his sanctuary...

  He pulled himself away from Hurkos, shook his head. That had been the stranger’s dream. How had he experienced it?

  Hurkos opened his eyes. They were chunks of polished coal, dark jewels threatening many secrets. His mouth was very dry, and when he tried to speak the corners of his lips cracked and spilled blood. The nameless man brought water. Finally: "It didn’t work, then." Hurkos had a deep, commanding voice.

  "What didn’t work? What were you doing out there?"

  Hurkos smiled. "Trying to kill myself."

  "Suicide?"

  "They call it that." He sipped more water.

  "Because Belina died?"

  Hurkos bristled. "How did you...?" After a moment: "I guess I told you."

  "Yes. How could I hear your dreams like that?"

  Hurkos looked puzzled for a moment. "I’m a telepath, of course. Sometimes I project, some rarer times I read thoughts. A very unstable talent. I project mostly when I’m asleep-or under pressure."

  "But how did you get out there without a ship?"

  "After I was released from the hospital-after Belina’s death and the crucifix incident-I signed on the Space Razzle as a cargo handler. When we were relatively far out in untraveled space, I went into the hold, disconnected the alarms from the pressure chamber, and left. I won’t be missed until pay day."

  "But why not step out without a suit? That would be quicker."

  Hurkos smiled an unsmile. "I guess a little of the healing did take hold. I guess we can recover from anything." But he did not look recovered. "Right now, my talent is fading. I can’t see a name in your mind."

  He hesitated. "You can’t see a name... because I have none." Briefly, he recounted the story of the waking, the amnesia, the strangeness of the ship.

  Hurkos was excited. Here was something in which he could submerge his grief, his melancholia. "We are going to make a real search of this tub, you and me. But first, you ought to have a name."

  "What?"

  "How about-Sam?" He paused. "After a friend of mine."

  "I like it. Who was the friend?"

  "A dog I bought on Callileo."

  "Thanks!"

  "He was noble."

  With the preliminaries out of the way, Sam could no longer contain his curiosity. "We both have names now. We know I am a man-but what are you?"

  Hurkos looked startled. "You don’t know what a Mue is?"

  "No. I guess maybe I have been gone too long. Maybe I left before there were Mues around."

  "Then you left a thousand years ago-and you went damn far away!"

  * * *

  III

  Hurkos came padding down the narrow corridor and into the main chamber. "Nothing at all!" he said, incredulous.

  They had been searching for six hours, looking through and behind everything. Still, no clues. During the time they had pried about together, however, Sam had filled in a few gaps in his education; Hurkos had recounted the history of the Mues. Once, well over a thousand years before, man had tried to make other men with the aid of artificial wombs, large tanks of semi-hydroponic nature that took sperm and egg of their own making and worked at forming babies. But after hundreds and hundreds of attempts, nothing exceedingly worthwhile had come of it. They had been attempting to produce men with psionic abilities valuable as weapons of war. Sometimes they came close, but never did they truly succeed. Then, when the project was finally junked, they had five hundred mutated children on their hands. This was a time when mankind was laying down its weapons for tools of friendship. Most looked upon the wombs as a hideous arm of the war effort that should never have been started in the first place-and they looked upon the Mue children with pity and shame. There was a great public outcry when the government hinted that the Mues might be put quietly and painlessly to sleep. Though some people did not consider them human, the vast majority of the population could not tolerate so horrid a slaughter with the Permanent Peace only months behind them. The Mues lived. In fifteen years, they had equality by law. In another hundred, they had it in reality. And they mated and had more of their kind, although the children were often perfectly normal. Today, there were fourteen million Mues-only an eighth of one percent of the galactic population, but alive and breathing and happy just the same. And Hurkos was one of them.

  Fourteen million.

  And he could not remember having ever heard of them before.

  "Food’s about ready," he said. Just then the light above the wall slot popped off and the tray slid out.

  "Smells good."

  They pulled the tray apart where it was perforated and sat on the floor to eat. "It’s damn eerie," Hurkos said, spitting the words around a mouthful of synthe-beef. "There should be some trademark, some scrap of writing, at least one brand name!" He paused, swallowed, then snapped, "The food!"

  Sam waved him back to his seat before the Mue could spill his dinner in a futile effort to rise quickly. "I already looked. The volume of food basics below the synthesizer is in unmarked containers."

  Hurkos frowned, sat down. "Well, let’s see what we do know. First, there is no log. Second, there is no trade name, serial number, brand anywhere on the ship. Third, you have no memory of your own past beyond this morning. Fourth, though you do not remember a thing that happened to you in your lifetime, you do remember the basics of empire history, human history. Except, that is, for a few especially glaring holes. Such as the artificial wombs and we Mues."

  "Agreed thus far," Sam said, putting down his food, wiping his mouth.

  "What’s the matter? You hardly ate."

  Sam grimaced, waved a hand vaguely and let it fall into his lap. "I don’t know exactly. I’m afraid to eat."

  Hurkos looked down at his own tray, paused half-finished with a mouthful. "Afraid?"

  "There’s this... hazy sort of fear... because..."

  "Go on!"

  "Because it’s been made by machines. The food isn’t natural."

  Hurkos swallowed. "There is the fifth piece of data. You’re afraid of machines. I thought so earlier-judging by your reaction to the sight of the robosurgeons."

  "But I’ll starve!"

  "I doubt that. You ate enough to keep you going. You just won’t get fat is all."

  Sam started to say something, but in the moment it took for his words to come from his larnyx to his tongue, he felt his head being ripped apart by thunders that shook every ounce of his flesh and soul. He opened his mouth, tried to scream, closed it abruptly. There was a chaos of noise in his head, a fermenting, fizzing, erupting madness. He was just barely aware that Hurkos was still talking to him, but he heard nothing. The world of the ship was distant and unreal. The noises, then, were speaking to him in a language of cacophony. Then he lost all awareness, was wrapped into the boomings, the dissonance. He pushed from the floor, found his seat, strapped in.

  Hurkos was beside him, obviously shouting. But he heard nothing.

  Nothing but the dissonance.

  He saw the Mue running, crawling into the flexoplast mattress they had taken off the surgeon’s table. They had decided, since there was no se
cond chair, that the flexoplast-wrapped completely around the Mue as a protective shell-would be a perfect substitute for a chair.

  Sam slammed down on the toggles, blasted... then hyperspaced with a gut-wrenching jerk.

  Hurkos was shouting from inside his mattress.

  The ship moaned.

  He reclined in his seat. The ship reached top hyperspace in incredibly short time. And collided with something...

  * * *

  IV

  The thunders, as soon as Sam had thrown the ship out of hyperspace and into Real Space, had faded into silence. He again had control of his body.

  Hurkos was rolling all over the floor, bounding off the walls as the ship shuddered, wallowed with the impact.

  Sam remembered, suddenly, that they had struck something, and he looked up at the viewplate and the blank expanse of normal space. So near that he could almost touch it, another ship was drifting in front and slightly to the left of him. Perhaps only a mile away. Close for a shield-collision. He punched for open radio and tried to contact the other vessel, but he received no response.

  "What the hell were you doing!" Hurkos shouted, freeing himself of the flexoplast and staggering to his feet.

  Sam loosened his seatbelt and also stood. He felt as if he was about to throw up, but he fought the urge. "I don’t know! I just lost control of my mind, my body, everything! Someone told me to set a course for the capital."

  "Hope?"

  "Yes. It told me to set a course for Hope and to hyperspace. Argument was impossible."

  Hurkos rubbed a sore spot on his arm, bruised because he had not gotten it into the flexoplast in time. "Did you recognize the voice?"