Free This Immortal by Roger Zelazny Page A

the better part of an hour, and they came again, more weakly, many times during that night. After the first bad shock had run its course, we got in touch with the Port. The instruments there showed that the center of the thing lay a good distance to the north of us.
    A bad distance, really.
    ... In the Mediterranean,
    The Aegean, to be more specific.
    I felt sick, and suddenly I was.
    I tried to put through a call to Kos.
    Nothing,
    My Cassandra, my lovely lady, my princess. . . .
    Where was she? For two hours I tried to find out.
    Then the Port called me.
    It was Lord's voice, not just some lob watch operator's.
    "Uh-Conrad, I don't know how to tell you, exactly, what happened ..."
    "Just talk," I said, "and stop when you're finished."
    "An observe-satellite passed your way about twelve minutes ago," he crackled across the bands.
    "Several of the Aegean islands were no longer present in the pictures it transmitted ..."
    "No," I said.
    "I'm afraid that Kos was one of them."
    "No," I said.
    "I'm sorry," he told me, "but that is the way it shows. I don't know what else to say...."
    "That's enough," I said. "That's all. That's it.
    Goodbye. We'll talk more later. No! I guess-No!"
    "Wait! Conrad!"
    I went mad.
    Bats, shaken loose from the night, were swooping THIS IMMORTAL 73
    about me. I struck out with my right hand and killed one as it flashed in my direction. I waited a few seconds and killed another. Then I picked up a big rock with both hands and was about to smash the radio when George laid a hand on my shoulder, and I dropped the rock and knocked his hand away and backhanded him across the mouth. I don't know what became of him then, but as I stooped to raise the rock once more I heard the sound of footfalls behind me. I dropped to one knee and pivoted on it, scooping up a handful of sand to throw in someone's eyes. They were all of them there: Myshtigo and Red Wig and DOS Santos, Rameses, Ellen, three local civil servants, and Hasan-approaching in a group. Someone yelled "Scatter!"
    when they saw my face, and they fanned out.
    Then they were everyone I'd ever hated-I could feel it. I saw other faces, heard other voices. Everyone I'd ever known, hated, wanted to smash, had smashed, stood there resurrected before the fire, and only the whites of their teeth were showing through the shadows that crossed over their faces as they smiled and came toward me, bearing various dooms in their hands, and soft, persuasive words on their lips-so I threw the sand at the foremost and rushed him.
    My uppercut knocked him over backward, then two Egyptians were on me from both sides.
    I shook them loose, and in the comer of my colder eye saw a great Arab with something like a black avocado in his hand. He was swinging it toward my head, so I dropped down. He had been coming in my direction and I managed to give his stomach more than just a shove, so he sat down suddenly. Then the two men I had thrown away 74 ROGER ZELAZNY
    were back on me again. A woman was screaming, somewhere in the distance, but I couldn't see any women.
    I tore my right arm free and batted someone with it, and the man went down and another took his place. From straight ahead a blue man threw a rock which struck me on the shoulder and only made me madder. I raised a kicking body into the air and threw it against another, then I hit someone with my fist. I shook myself. My galabieh was torn and dirty, so I tore it the rest of the way off and threw it away.
    I looked around. They had stopped coming at me, and it wasn't fair-it wasn't fair that they should stop then when I wanted so badly to see things breaking. So I raised up the man at my feet and slapped him down again. Then I raised him up again and someone yelled "Eh! Karaghiosis!" and began calling me names in broken Greek. I let the man fall back to the ground and turned.
    There, before the fire-there were two of them: one tall and bearded, the other squat and heavy and hairless and molded out of a mixture of putty