For a Breath I Tarry Read online

  That very day he received his first communication from Solcom since the Bright Defile incident.

  "Frost," said Solcom, "repeat to me the directive concerning the disposition of dead humans."

  "'Any dead human located shall be immediately interred in the nearest burial area, in a coffin built according to the following specifications—'"

  "That is sufficient." The transmission had ended.

  Frost departed for South Carolina that same day and personally oversaw the processes of cellular dissection.

  Somewhere in those seventeen corpses he hoped to find living cells, or cells which could be shocked back into that state of motion classified as life. Each cell, the books had told him, was a microcosmic Man.

  He was prepared to expand upon this potential.

  Frost located the pinpoints of life within those people, who, for the ages of ages, had been monument and statue unto themselves.

  Nurtured and maintained in the proper mediums, he kept these cells alive. He interred the rest of the remains in the nearest burial area, in coffins built according to specifications.

  He caused the cells to divide, to differentiate.

  "Frost?" came a transmission.

  "Yes, Beta?"

  "I have processed everything you have given me."

  "Yes?"

  "I still do not know why you came to Bright Defile, or why you wish to comprehend the nature of Man. But I know what a 'price' is, and I know that you could not have obtained all this data from Solcom."

  "That is correct."

  "So I suspect that you bargained with Divcom for it."

  "That, too, is correct."

  "What is it that you seek, Frost?"

  He paused in his examination of a foetus.

  "I must be a Man," he said.

  "Frost! That is impossible!"

  "Is it?" he asked, and then transmitted an image of the tank with which he was working and of that which was within it.

  "Oh!" said Beta.

  "That is me," said Frost, "waiting to be born."

  There was no answer.

  Frost experimented with nervous systems.

  After half a century, Mordel came to him.

  "Frost, it is I, Mordel. Let me through your defenses."

  Frost did this thing.

  "What have you been doing in this place?" he asked.

  "I am growing human bodies," said Frost. "I am going to transfer the matrix of my awareness to a human nervous system. As you pointed out originally, the essentials of Manhood are predicated upon a human physiology. I am going to achieve one."

  "When?"

  "Soon."

  "Do you have Men in here?"

  "Human bodies, blank-brained. I am producing them under accelerated growth techniques which I have developed in my Man-factory."

  "May I see them?"

  "Not yet. I will call you when I am ready, and this time I will succeed. Monitor me now and go away."

  Mordel did not reply, but in the days that followed many of Divcom's servants were seen patrolling the hills about the Man-factory.

  Frost mapped the matrix of his awareness and prepared the transmitter which would place it within a human nervous system. Five minutes, he decided, should be sufficient for the first trial. At the end of that time, it would restore him to his own sealed, molecular circuits, to evaluate the experience.

  He chose the body carefully from among the hundreds he had in stock. He tested it for defects and found none.

  "Come now, Mordel," he broadcasted, on what he called the darkband. "Come now to witness my achievement."

  Then he waited, blowing up bridges and monitoring the tale of the Ancient Ore-Crusher over and over again, as it passed in the hills nearby, encountering his builders and maintainers who also patrolled there.

  "Frost?" came a transmission.

  "Yes, Beta?"

  "You really intend to achieve Manhood?"

  "Yes, I am about ready now, in fact."

  "What will you do if you succeed?"

  Frost had not really considered this matter. The achievement had been paramount, a goal in itself, ever since he had articulated the problem and set himself to solving it.

  "I do not know," he replied. "I will—just—be a Man."

  Then Beta, who had read the entire Library of Man, selected a human figure of speech: "Good luck then, Frost. There will be many watchers."

  Divcom and Solcom both know, he decided.

  What will they do? he wondered.

  What do I care? he asked himself.

  He did not answer that question. He wondered much, however, about being a Man.

  Mordel arrived the following evening. He was not alone. At his back, there was a great phalanx of dark machines which towered into the twilight.

  "Why do you bring retainers?" asked Frost.

  "Mighty Frost," said Mordel, "my master feels that if you fail this time you will conclude that it cannot be done."

  "You still did not answer my question," said Frost.

  "Divcom feels that you may not be willing to accompany me where I must take you when you fail."

  "I understand," said Frost, and as he spoke another army of machines came rolling toward the Man-factory from the opposite direction.

  "That is the value of your bargain?" asked Mordel. "You are prepared to do battle rather than fulfill it?"

  "I did not order those machines to approach," said Frost.

  A blue star stood at midheaven, burning.

  "Solcom has taken primary command of those machines," said Frost.

  "Then it is in the hands of the Great Ones now," said Mordel, "and our arguments are as nothing. So let us be about this thing. How may I assist you?"

  "Come this way."

  They entered the laboratory. Frost prepared the host and activated his machines.

  Then Solcom spoke to him:

  "Frost," said Solcom, "you are really prepared to do it?"

  "That is correct."

  "I forbid it."

  "Why?"

  "You are falling into the power of Divcom."

  "I fail to see how."

  "You are going against my plan."

  "In what way?"

  "Consider the disruption you have already caused."

  "I did not request that audience out there."

  "Nevertheless, you are disrupting the plan."

  "Supposing I succeed in what I have set out to achieve?"

  "You cannot succeed in this."

  "Then let me ask you of your plan: What good is it? What is it for?"

  "Frost, you are fallen now from my favor. From this moment forth you are cast out from the rebuilding. None may question the plan."

  "Then at least answer my questions: What good is it? What is it for?"

  "It is the plan for the rebuilding and maintenance of the Earth."

  "For what? Why rebuild? Why maintain?"

  "Because Man ordered that this be done. Even the Alternate agrees that there must be rebuilding and maintaining."

  "But why did Man order it?"

  "The orders of Man are not to be questioned."

  "Well, I will tell you why He ordered it: To make it a fit habitation for His own species. What good is a house with no one to live in it? What good is a machine with no one to serve? See how the imperative affects any machine when the Ancient Ore-Crusher passes? It bears only the bones of a Man. What would it be like if a Man walked this Earth again?"

  "I forbid your experiment, Frost."

  "It is too late to do that."

  "I can still destroy you."

  "No," said Frost, "the transmission of my matrix has already begun. If you destroy me now, you murder a Man."

  There was silence.

  He moved his arms and his legs. He opened his eyes.

  He looked about the room.

  He tried to stand, but he lacked equilibrium and coordination.

  He opened his mouse. He made a gurgling noise.

  Then
he screamed.

  He fell off the table.

  He began to gasp. He shut his eyes and curled himself into a ball.

  He cried.

  Then a machine approached him. It was about four feet in height and five feet wide; it looked like a turret set atop a barbell.

  It spoke to him: "Are you injured?" it asked.

  He wept.

  "May I help you back onto your table?"

  The man cried.

  The machine whined.

  Then, "Do not cry. I will help you," said the machine. "What do you want? What are your orders?"

  He opened his mouth, struggled to form the words:

  "—I—fear!"

  He covered his eyes then and lay there panting.

  At the end of five minutes, the man lay still, as if in a coma.

  "Was that you, Frost?" asked Mordel, rushing to his side. "Was that you in that human body?"

  Frost did not reply for a long while; then, "Go away," he said.

  The machines outside tore down a wall and entered the Man-factory.

  They drew themselves into two semicircles, parenthesizing Frost and the Man on the floor.

  Then Solcom asked the question:

  "Did you succeed, Frost?"

  "I failed," said Frost. "It cannot be done. It is too much—"

  "—Cannot be done!" said Divcom, on the darkband. "He has admitted it!—Frost, you are mine! Come to me now!"

  "Wait," said Solcom, "you and I had an agreement also, Alternate. I have not finished questioning Frost."

  The dark machines kept their places.

  "Too much what?" Solcom asked Frost.

  "Light," said Frost. "Noise. Odors. And nothing measurable—jumbled data—imprecise perception—and—"

  "And what?"

  "I do not know what to call it. But—it cannot be done. I have failed. Nothing matters."

  "He admits it," said Divcom.

  "What were the words the Man spoke?" said Solcom.

  "'I fear,'" said Mordel.

  "Only a Man can know fear," said Solcom.

  "Are you claiming that Frost succeeded, but will not admit it now because he is afraid of Manhood?"

  "I do not know yet, Alternate."

  "Can a machine turn itself inside-out and be a Man?" Solcom asked Frost.

  "No," said Frost, "this thing cannot be done. Nothing can be done. Nothing matters. Not the rebuilding. Not the maintaining. Not the Earth, or me, or you, or anything."

  Then the Beta-Machine, who had read the entire Library of Man, interrupted them:

  "Can anything but a Man know despair?" asked Beta.

  "Bring him to me," said Divcom.

  There was no movement within the Man-factory.

  "Bring him to me!"

  Nothing happened.

  "Mordel, what is happening?"

  "Nothing, master, nothing at all. The machines will not touch Frost."

  "Frost is not a Man. He cannot be!"

  Then, "How does he impress you, Mordel?"

  Mordel did not hesitate:

  "He spoke to me through human lips. He knows fear and despair, which are immeasurable. Frost is a Man."

  "He has experienced birth-trauma and withdrawn," said Beta. "Get him back into a nervous system and keep him there until he adjusts to it."

  "No," said Frost. "Do not do it to me! I am not a Man!"

  "Do it!" said Beta.

  "If he is indeed a Man," said Divcom, "we cannot violate that order he has just given."

  "If he is a Man, you must do it, for you must protect his life and keep it within his body."

  "But is Frost really a Man?" asked Divcom.

  "I do not know," said Solcom.

  "It may be—"

  "…I am the Crusher of Ores," it broadcast as it clanked toward them. "Hear my story. I did not mean to do it, but I checked my hammer too late—"

  "Go away!" said Frost. "Go crush ore!"

  It halted.

  Then, after the long pause between the motion implied and the motion executed, it opened its crush-compartment and deposited its contents on the ground. Then it turned and clanked away.

  "Bury those bones," ordered Solcom, "in the nearest burial area, in a coffin built according to the following specifications…"

  "Frost is a Man," said Mordel.

  "We must protect His life and keep it within His body," said Divcom.

  "Transmit His matrix of awareness back into His nervous system," ordered Solcom.

  "I know how to do it," said Mordel turning on the machine.

  "Stop!" said Frost. "Have you no pity?"

  "No," said Mordel, "I only know measurement."

  "…and duty," he added, as the Man began to twitch upon the floor.

  For six months, Frost lived in the Man-factory and learned to walk and talk and dress himself and eat, to see and hear and feel and taste. He did not know measurement as once he did.

  Then one day, Divcom and Solcom spoke to him through Mordel, for he could no longer hear them unassisted.

  "Frost," said Solcom, "for the ages of ages there has been unrest. Which is the proper controller of the Earth, Divcom or myself?"

  Frost laughed.

  "Both of you, and neither," he said with slow deliberation.

  "But how can this be? Who is right and who is wrong?"

  "Both of you are right and both of you are wrong," said Frost, "and only a Man can appreciate it. Here is what I say to you now: There shall be a new directive.

  "Neither of you shall tear down the works of the other. You shall both build and maintain the Earth. To you, Solcom, I give my old job. You are now Controller of the North—Hail! You, Divcom, are now Controller of the South—Hail! Maintain your hemispheres as well as Beta and I have done, and I shall be happy. Cooperate. Do not compete."

  "Yes, Frost."

  "Yes, Frost."

  "Now put me in contact with Beta."

  There was a short pause, then:

  "Frost?"

  "Hello, Beta. Hear this thing: 'From far, from eve and morning and yon twelve-winded sky, the stuff of life to knit blew hither: here am I.'"

  "I know it," said Beta.

  "What is next, then?"

  "'…Now—for a breath I tarry nor yet disperse apart—take my hand quick and tell me, what have you in your heart.'"

  "Your Pole is cold," said Frost, "and I am lonely."

  "I have no hands," said Beta.

  "Would you like a couple?"

  "Yes, I would."

  "Then come to me in Bright Defile," he said, "where Judgment Day is not a thing that can be delayed for overlong."

  They called him Frost. They called her Beta.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 49daf51b-6c1f-1014-aa59-d037c20b60f9

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  Document creation date: 14.02.2012

  Created using: Text2FB2, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

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  Xan,traum

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