Free The Dancers of Noyo by Margaret St. Clair Page B

"chemical conscience." But I was preoccupied with trying to sort out what began to feel like my identity from Bennet's. And what about Bennet himself? Had the visionary scene on the seacoast with Kate Wimbold been as veridical as the interview in the cabin with O'Hare? Both had been lived by me as Bennet; but had the historical Bennet actually lived both of them? (I was unshakeably sure that Bennet's last few hours—Bennet, whose concealment of his disease had been responsible for the deaths of millions—had been as I had lived them. Strange sidelight on history! And O'Hare had grown the Dancers from Bennet's oral cells.)
     
                  They were propelling me up the slope from the gulch to the road. "On your way, Jack," my jailer said when I reached the top. He gave me a parting shove.
     
                  I turned north. In my fuddled condition, I was convinced I could deal with the Dancer at Noyo by appealing to the covenants the girl in the scuba suit had mentioned to Bennet. Why walk a long way down the coast, hunting an ally or trying to have the Grail Vision, when I could get rid of the unnatural creature so immediately? And after him, all the other Dancers. It would be as easy as swatting flies on a garbage heap.
     
                  "He's headed north," my hard-breathing jailer said. "Shall we let him go?"
     
                  "No, I think not," the precise man said reflectively. "He still looks a little too intelligent, a little too normal, to me. Turn him to face south. He can use a little more processing."
     
                  I was turned around as neatly as a cable car on a turntable (Jade Moon took me on a visit to San Fran once, when I was about five and she was in one of her fits of being convinced I really was her child.) Docilely I began walking south. I didn't mind abandoning my plan particularly. It was like a dream in which I was convinced that whatever happened, it was all for the best.
     
                  The men watched me in silence, hands on their hips. "He sure is confused," the heavy-breather said.
     
                  "Fine," said the other. "Ideally, he shouldn't be able to tell his own butt from ours. Brotherly told us not to let him go unless we were sure he'd never come out of it. I don't think he ever will. But he could use a little more processing, and he'll get that on south."
     
                  I was being discussed as if I weren't present. I felt a dim irritation, but I kept my head down and made no sign. I had gone a fair distance—three or four hundred feet—when I heard a voice behind me.
     
                  " Tham , Tham , oh, Tham ! Tham McGregor! You forgot your patheth ! Tham !" It was Gee-Gee, and she was carrying my sheaf of wooden passes in her hand.
     
                  Involuntarily I turned around and took the passes she was holding out to me. An instant later I realized that I had betrayed myself, that my captors would realize I was somewhat less zonked than they thought.
     
                  It was too late. The next minute the two men were after me with thudding feet. I began to run, still feeling poorly connected with my body. But I was connected enough to be pretty frightened. I knew that if they caught me they wouldn't let me go until I was crazy for good.
     
                  They were gaining on me. Panting and rubber-legged, sweating heavily, I struggled on. Then a car stopped beside me. It was a rancher in a truck, headed south.
     
                  Bless that man. Bless his monogamous, beer-drinking, flag-saluting squareness . For a moment he looked from wild-eyed me to my angry pursuers. Then he opened the truck cab door. "Want a lift?" he said.
     
                  "You bet."
     
                  "Get in." I got in with alacrity, and we drove off. The truck was a gas-burner, but it