'There's a micro-miniature receiver, transmitter, and amplifier in the tip. It touches the bones of your ear, picks up the vibrations of your own voice from your jaw, and transmits them to me. Mine does the same. Just whisper, and I'll hear you. Of course, we won't hear anything else.'

Hesitantly, the big man followed suit, inserting the tight-fitting plugs.

'Now hold your head here,' Sam said, producing a small tin.

'Why? What's that?'

'Sound-proofing jelly.'

'I'll put it in myself.'

'Very well.' Sam dipped his fingers into the thick goo, smeared it over the back of the plug and the rest of his ears, handed the tin to Buronto.

'Remember,' Sam said, 'when we get inside, no useless-'

'Killing,' Buronto finished. 'Don't worry. Just lead me in.'

'Just to the Ship's Core,' Sam said. 'I'll take you there, but you won't catch me fighting this thing.'

'I'm not scared!' Buronto snapped, a child being tested.

'Let's go.'

They moved from the oaks, crouched and running, darting from one patch of growth to another. They reached the ship without incident. Fifteen minutes later, the laser torch had burned through all the layers of the hull* And the snout of a laser rifle punched through the hole, aimed directly between Sam's eyes.

There was a blue blast. Sam was falling before he realized he had not been shot. Buronto had burned the alien down. The slug leaned out, hanging for a moment on the edge of the ragged hole, its flesh tearing on the shards of metal poking like fingers from the rim of the crudely cut aperture. The rifle dangled in its pseudopod, trembled almost as a living thing itself, then fell out onto the gra.s.s. The slug gurgled, swayed, tore itself further on the metal, then toppled out also, sprawling full-length at their feet. There was a yard-long gash on its side. Things spewed from it, wet and orange.

'Okay that I killed it?' Buronto asked snidely.

Sam coughed, got up. 'Yes. Fine. Very good.'

Buronto laughed, half at Sam's embarra.s.sment, half at the pile of gore he had made.

'It seems to have been a solitary guard,' Sam said, peering into the dimly lighted corridor. 'But let's hurry just the same.' He pulled himself over the sill, disappeared into the ship.

Buronto climbed in after.

Blessed be the time. The time is near.

'This way,' Sam hissed. 'Gun at ready, but-'

'No killing unless necessary.'

'Exactly. You learn well. Slow, but well.'

Halfway down this corridor, Sam planted a small transmitter behind the edge of a jutting beam. He looked at his watch-screen. There was a yellow blip near the edge. That was the transmitter. The screen coordinates had been set so that, once they reached a position where their own blips (green) were in the center of the screen, they would be in the middle of the ship, somewhere near Ship's Core. They moved on.

Though powerful and ruthless, the aliens were unimaginative. The ship was void, in the corridors at least, of any decoration or special styling. Solid gray walls, floors, and ceilings. One step brought them past the same sights as the last hundred had. The last thousand.

There was one danger with the earplugs. They could not hear the Racesong, but neither could they hear the slugs coming. Two aliens slithered into view at the end of the corridor, cloaks of shimmering purple material falling behind them and trailing a few feet on the floor. 'Back!' Sam whispered.

They stood against the wall, pressing as tight as they could to its cool surface. The slugs came on, apparently talking, oblivious of their presence. They walked right past the two men* and whirled! Something had registered-but too late. Buronto brought his gun up, then hesitated as if he wasn't certain whether he should fire or not.

'Yes!' Sam shouted. 'Before they call for help!'

Blue-blue-blue-blue. And it was over. The slugs were spattered across the floor, a few sc.r.a.ps of their bodies on fire, tiny yellow flames licking the rich fat. And it was over. The slugs were spattered across the floor, a few sc.r.a.ps of their bodies on fire, tiny yellow flames licking the rich fat.

'We have to move faster now,' Sam said. 'They find these bodies and we're sunk.'

They moved, faster now. Sam thought how dreamlike the last encounter had been. Without sound, it had all been a grotesque parody of reality. Death without sound. Murder without screaming. Certainly, the time was coming.

Eventually, after many steps and many turns, the wall to their right turned from gray to a brilliant bronze. They clung to the glittering metal and followed the wall. In a few minutes, they discovered they had walked in a large circle.

'We're here,' Sam croaked, mouth suddenly dry, every nerve now sharp with fear.

'Where?'

'Ship's Core. It's right inside this glittering wall-not more than two hundred feet in diameter.'

Buronto stepped ahead of Sam to a door they had pa.s.sed twice during their circ.u.mnavigation of the chamber. 'I'm going to get it over with.'

So you can kill the slugs for fun, Sam thought. Sam thought. So you can gleefully romp through rivers of nice, thick, orange blood. So you can gleefully romp through rivers of nice, thick, orange blood.

Buronto twisted the k.n.o.b, almost broke it off. The door hummed, lifted to reveal a shimmering blue chamber hung with webs and permeated with mists. There seemed to be darker hulks concealed in the fog, looming like icebergs. As Sam watched from the hall, Buronto stepped through the doorway, rifle at ready.

XVI.

Buronto stepped further into the chamber. At ten feet, the mists started to close in on him. At fifteen feet, they concealed his legs, his hips, the back of his head.

The floor was spongy, pores beginning to open in it. It bounced as he stepped on it.

'I'm here!' the giant shouted defiantly.

A m.u.f.fled echo was the only answer.

Then the floor heaved, and the room was alive.

It bucked, swayed, and Buronto went down. Wildy, he blasted it, boring holes through the sponge, holes that immediately healed over and were full again. He tried to stand, but the body of G.o.d served as a mat for no creature. Down he went, floor seeming to un-gel and clutch at him. He sank into it, kicked and tried pulling free.

Sam leaned against the wall, gripping himself with his arms. This G.o.d was more powerful than the last, undrained. It was able to heal Itself where the other whimpered and died. More powerful, but ruling this vastly shrunken universe: one ship and spoors. He watched Buronto's flesh peel away under the acidic touch of the floor that now resembled a tongue. All in silence, all deadly and still. A play seen through other eyes. And G.o.d was winning*

But, Sam hoped, in winning, G.o.d would also lose.

Buronto struggled to his feet again, fighting mightily against this much superior force, fighting with panic. Half his face was a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. He held the beam on the floor, screaming steadily. Here comes the devil to the gates of Heaven, cursing and spraying foam, tossing the lightning bolts of his black power to tumble down the equal blackness of the divine light*

The floor bucked again. Buronto fell. And this time, he did not get up. The floor frothed, boiled about him, and when the foam steamed away, there were only fragments of steaming, bubbling bone. No worry now about how to handle Buronto. Now all he had to worry about was whether or not the trick had worked. It should have-given one fact as a truth! G.o.d must be, like the other G.o.d, a sado-m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t by nature, liking to give pain-the omnipotent fist ringed with smiling lips. Surely, the very nature of G.o.d demanded that He be a liker of pain and a giver of much of it. If this was true in this case, as it had been with the G.o.d Hurkos had killed, then the problem was over. G.o.d was now insane.

Only one way to know for sure. Take out the earplugs*

Grabbing them, he ripped them free. The rush of sound almost knocked him down. But no Racesong. Racesong was dead. This was nothing more than a mad, ugly babbling. G.o.d had been crushed-mentally, not physically.

Steps in consideration of a program to drive a G.o.d over the brink: 1) a.s.sume the G.o.d is somewhat insane already (s.a.d.i.s.tic, m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic, and a bit paranoid); 2) Bring a killer into the presence of the G.o.d, and invite the G.o.d to murder the man; 3) The G.o.d commits the murder, but in grasping for the radiation of pain, in searching hungrily for the issuance of tortured suffering, the G.o.d encounters joy at pain and exultation over oncoming death. Because the G.o.d is killing a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, not a normal creature.

Sam had gambled that Buronto's joy at dying only for the pain-not for some great cause-would be too alien for the Central Being. It was accustomed to the purpose of the race and would a.s.sume any race to have a purpose. A confrontation with a creature like Buronto, one enjoying the pain and dying without cause or reason, would disrupt the divine creature's basics for reasoning. It would throw Its tight, compact scheme of things to the blazes. And there would be nothing to take their place. Once the idea of purposelessness had planted itself, insanity lay only a breath away.

Perhaps that's part of our superiority, Sam thought, trying to catch his breath. Sam thought, trying to catch his breath. Perhaps man's purposelessness, our aimless wandering, keeps us strong and sane enough to handle all things. Men, living as best suits us at the moment, outlive all great causes and plans. Perhaps man's purposelessness, our aimless wandering, keeps us strong and sane enough to handle all things. Men, living as best suits us at the moment, outlive all great causes and plans.

Stumbling, so very tired, he moved back the way he had come, back toward the hole in the hull.

Around him, slugs weaved, inundated by the babble.

Racesong was gone.

Some of them moved toward him, menacingly waving rifles, but turned away or dropped the guns in confusion. There was no hypnotic command to kill. No submelody demanding murder. They were lost without the Racesong, without a guiding voice. They could see no real reason to kill now. They were beginning the same long climb man had almost finished. Gradually, they would become saner.

He pa.s.sed the bodies Buronto was responsible for.

A hundred yards from the hole they had made, he became aware of a slug following him. He turned, stared at it.

It mewed, not angrily.

He turned.

It moved next to him, mewing.

'Go away, dammit!' he shouted.

It mewed, mewed, somehow crossing language barriers with the question it was asking-the question that still lurked somewhere in his own soul.

'Leave me!'

Mewing, water through a flute*

'There will be more G.o.ds,' he said, vomit suddenly touching the back of his throat. He threw up on the wall, leaned heavily against the gray metal. He gagged, cleared his throat. 'There will be more rungs falling down the ladder now.' He was talking to a hundred ghosts, living and dead, to Gnossos, Hurkos, Buronto, Coro, Lotus, Crazy, all the dead people in the gore-splattered streets of Hope. They tumbled before him, insubstantial. 'There will be more G.o.ds. But the ladder is structured like a pyramid, each rung smaller than the last, each G.o.d more provincial, less awesome. We'll whip them, sooner or later. We'll swat them like flies, those awful, ponderous universe-rulers. We are not property, d.a.m.n it! We are not property! Dammit, dammit, dammit!'

The slug touched him, called sweetly in hissing tones.

'I am not yours,' Sam spit through tightened lips. He turned and staggered toward the hole again.

The slug followed.

At the hole, he turned to it, his face flushed with an anger that had suddenly become undirectable.

It mewed.

'Dammit!' he roared. 'Dammit to h.e.l.l-if there is a h.e.l.l. Man is his own G.o.d. He has to be, if there was ever any purpose.' His mouth quivered, his eyes streamed tears. 'And I am not your G.o.d!'

He fell through the hole and onto the gra.s.s. The slug did not follow.

In the city, the gutters were clogged with the flow of blood as it poured silently into the sewers. The stars were bright. The sky was without a roof. And darkness spoke to the wind.

Berkley t.i.tles by Dean Koontz

THE EYES OF DARKNESS.

THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT.

MR. MURDER.

THE FUNHOUSE.

DRAGON TEARS.

SHADOWFIRES.

HIDEAWAY.

COLD FIRE.

THE HOUSE OF THUNDER.

THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT.

THE BAD PLACE.

THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT.

MIDNIGHT.

LIGHTNING.

THE MASK.