Doomsday Eve 6

Doomsday Eve 6

"Good. Then we will go see the doctors."

 

"I didn't mean that either. I was shaking my head to clear it. There's

a fog in it."

 

"A fog in your head?" Unease appeared in her voice.

 

"Yes. What's wrong with that? Lots of men have fogs in their heads." To

him, this seemed a reasonable statement. "Lots of men have to go to the

docs every couple of weeks to have the fogs blown out of their heads."

Thinking he had made a joke, he laughed.

 

Nedra did not think he had said anything funny. Resolutely, she took

his arm. "Come with me, colonel." As she led him toward the truck which

the medics were using for a first aid station, something happened.

 

He saw clearly.

 

He saw everything.

 

The ability to see came suddenly, out of nowhere. One second it was not

there. Then it was there. It was like seeing with eyes, except it was

better than ocular perception had ever been. With it, he was not only

able to see surfaces, he could also see into the interior of things.

An acute understanding of what he saw went with the perception.

 

He saw that the Universe was as tall as a man, and no taller. He saw

that it was as wide as a man, and no wider. He saw that it was as broad

as a man, and no broader.

 

He saw the human race in its entirety, one man and all men, all men in

one man. Simultaneously, he saw the whole history of the race, he saw

the long journey it had made from so-called inanimate matter to the

point where it was now a creature that looked outward to the stars. He

saw that the destiny of the race lay in those stars, and in all that

vast expanse of space between them, if it did not destroy itself in

the process of growing to star stature. He saw that the race could do

exactly this, that it could blow itself back to the component atoms

that composed it, in which case the long and toilsome, heart-breaking

struggle upward from the atomic level would have to begin all over

again.

 

He also knew what he was doing with this clear seeing.

 

He was touching the race mind.

 

He was in contact with the race field.

 

His consciousness had been lifted to the level of that vast,

all-pervading, but very subtle force field that comprised the race mind.

 

The knowledge was sudden agony in him, a pain that was needle sharp in

the region of his heart. The pain was strange because, while he could

feel it and knew it was happening in his body, it had no meaning to

him. He was detached from it, it hurt his body, but it did not hurt or

harm him.

 

His body was alarmed by the pain, his breathing quickened, and a faint

trace of sweat appeared on his skin. But he was not alarmed. Even if

his body fell dead, he would not be concerned.

 

"What is it, Kurt?" his ears heard Nedra say. She had detected his

heavy breathing and she was alarmed. "Are you about to faint again?"

 

"No," his lips answered. His body laughed at the question. He heard the

sound of his laughter as being both his and not his. His body knew it

was not going to faint. His laughter sounded hollow and out of place

but he did not care about that either.

 

Ahead, soldiers were lined up at the back end of the truck, waiting

their turn in line.

 

"Your rank entitles you to priority," Nedra said hesitantly.

 

"In the place where I am now, my rank doesn't exist," he answered. "I

join the end of the line, I take my turn." He was quite stubborn about

this.

 

The nurse looked pleased. He wondered if he had said something

important. To him, what he had said seemed obvious. Behind him, West

was a silent shadow wrapped in an enigma. Even with his sudden new

perception, his contact with a higher form of consciousness, he could

not perceive West clearly. Something about the craggy man defied

penetration and analysis.

 

The men in the line ahead of him waited for their turn, shuffling

forward each time the medics finished with their examination. There was

no talk in the line. Not a man grumbled, not a man complained. Knowing

men, Zen knew that this was ominous.

 

These men had had it. They knew they had had it. In the face of that

knowledge, nothing else mattered. Outwardly, they looked fit. Inwardly,

something had happened to them. It seemed to Zen that he could see

glows coming from their bodies. One was swaying. Zen seemed to glimpse

a blob of light moving suddenly upward from the man. The soldier fell.

He did not move a muscle after he hit.

 

Nedra started toward him. Zen shook his head. "No use," he said.

 

"Why not?"

 

Zen pointed skyward. "He went that way."

 

Her face whitened as she caught his meaning. "I'll make sure."

 

She moved forward and inspected the fallen man, felt for a pulse, and

felt again, then got to her feet. As she returned, her back seemed to

have acquired a new sag.

 

An officer shouted from the truck, his voice gravel rough from tension.

In response, a stretcher-bearing detail moved forward. They inspected

the body of the fallen man, then lifted it and tossed it to the side of

the trail. One clipped a dog tag from it, then ran a counter over it.

He grunted to his companion, who tied a red tag on the dead man's wrist.

 

"Up that way, boys, you can find some more," Zen called to them,

jerking his thumb up the slope.

 

"We're not a burial detail," was the answer.

 

The soldiers in the line shuffled forward.

 

"Hey! It's gone!" Zen said suddenly.

 

"What's gone?"

 

"I'm back," Zen said.

 

"You never went anywhere," the nurse said.

 

"_It's gone_ and _I'm back_ both mean the same thing," he tried to

explain. "The thing that is gone is my contact with the race field.

_I'm back_ means that all of a sudden, I'm normal. I'm back here.

I'm looking out of my eyes. I'm hearing with my ears. I don't know

everything any longer."

 

Daze was in him. Worse than the daze was the fact that even the memory

of the experience was receding. Agony came with this recession. It

seemed to him that this experience was the most important thing that

had ever happened to him.

 

And it was going away. He watched it slide out of his memory. He felt

like running wildly to try and recapture it. Which way he would run

did not matter, just so he ran until he found it again. He fought the

impulse to run. The experience was not out there; it could not be found

if he searched the whole world for it.

 

It was inside him.

 

Nedra looked at West and started to speak, but the craggy man motioned

her to silence.

 

"Saul on the road to Damascus," Zen muttered. "Something like this

happened to Saul on the road to Damascus."

 

"Kurt--" Nedra said. Again the craggy man motioned her to silence. The

fellow, rough mountaineer that he was, seemed to have some perception

of the turmoil inside a fellow human being, and more than that, to have

understanding and sympathy.

 

"I contacted the race mind," Zen said. "For a minute, I was in touch

with the field of the race. But it's gone now," he added. Sadness and a

falling voice went with the last words.

 

"Step in front of the scope, soldier," a gravel voice growled behind

him. Turning, he saw that he was next in line. The lieutenant in charge

of the first aid station had spoken to him. Seeing the eagle on Zen's

helmet he hastily apologized. "I beg your pardon, sir."

 

"It's all right," Zen said. For an instant, as conflicting ideas

competed for __EXPRESSION__ in him, he wondered who he was and why he was

here. Then he remembered what had happened. Well established reaction

patterns took over and he stepped into position in front of the scope.

Inside the back end of the truck, a transformer hummed. Although

he could not feel it, he knew that a powerful stream of radiation

was passing through his body and that a count was being made of the

radioactivity he had absorbed. The lieutenant studied his meters, then

looked up at Zen.

 

"You're all right, sir." He seemed puzzled.

 

"Not hot, eh?"

 

"No, sir, you're not. Frankly, I don't understand it. Oh, you've got a

little exposure, but nothing serious."

 

"I was in one of the old mines when the blast went off," Zen explained.

 

"Then that accounts for it. You were lucky as hell, sir. Next."

 

Catching Nedra's arm, Zen swung her in front of the scope. The

experience with higher levels of consciousness had been forced out of

his mind, and he was all intelligence officer.

 

"But I'm all right! I mean, there's nothing wrong. Are you out of your

mind again?"

 

"Yes," Zen said. "But I've got the rank to make my decisions stick

whether I'm out of my mind or not. Lieutenant, check this woman. This

is an order!" Zen snapped out the words with all the precision and

authority of a drill-field sergeant training recruits.

 

"Yes, sir," the startled medical officer said.