A Jungle of Stars Read online

  Savage was pushed ahead by McNally and ran for the open bay only meters away. As he did, he felt a sharp explosion in his back and went down almost as he reached the chopper door. Strong hands pushed him into the bay and he heard others jump in behind him. The chopper lifted off, bullets striking its sides.

  "How many hit?" McNally called over the engine noise.

  "Lost Sam and Harry," Santori yelled. "And him. No big loss, though. Bullheaded sonovabitch. Look at him lyin' there, like a big ape, bleedin' his guts out.

  "Yeah," someone else put in. "Sorta like one of them cavemen or somethin'. Ugliest bastard I've ever seen."

  The object of the comments lay facedown in an ever-widening pool of blood. He felt like a ten-ton spider was on his back, all the legs having equal and monstrous weight. He couldn't move at all, not even groan.

  "He ain't gonna make it," someone remarked, but the words were a million miles away. He couldn't think anymore, yet he felt as if his mind was perfectly clear. Shock dulled the pain to a mild discomfort, and something told him that he'd be dead before he would feel the full impact of the injury.

  He didn't give a damn any longer.

  He was conscious of someone bending over him, but he couldn't see who, nor did it seem to matter. Mentally and physically, he was totally paralyzed.

  "Sorry, Savage," McNally's voice came softly from the fog in his ears, "but no way was I gonna let you throw any of us in the clink--particularly me."

  No one else heard the comment, and Savage could do nothing with it. For Savage there were no longer sounds, or sights, or feelings, nor even the acrid smell of the chopper. He was alone in his own private world.

  The official records of the United States Army stated that Paul Carleton Savage, Second Lieutenant, USAR, died in action aboard a rescue helicopter as the result of hostile fire on or about 0430 on 29 July 1969.

  The first time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He was not aware that he was dead. This, on the face of it, was normal, as it meant a complete absence of sensation and he had had no previous experience of that sort.

  The terror on his back was gone, lifted slowly as vision had been blotted out; but this brought no surprise, no shock that it was gone. It had lifted slowly, accompanied by that slow fade of all sensation, like a candle being gradually extinguished by carbon dioxide.

  There had come a blankness, an absence of all colors, even black and white. He had had nothing to compare it to; such a concept could exist only in theory in the world he had left.

  Bit by bit, he became aware of subtle differences, of tangibles in the void. As with the void itself, he had no frame of reference--awareness that there were other things, perhaps (or maybe "others") all around him. But it was as if, having been struck totally blind, deaf, and dumb, vision was returning.

  Yet he could "see" only in this new, undefinable way which, lacking words or frame of reference, he could only experience, not comprehend.

  What the shit is this? he thought angrily.

  He remembered. He remembered the mission, the mutiny. He remembered that he had been murdered, not shot by an enemy.

  Murdered? No, that couldn't be right. He was still--Well, he was still.

  The horrible thought struck him that he was in a hospital somewhere, deaf, dumb, blind, insensitive to the world--a living vegetable imprisoned in the wrecked shell of his body. It terrified him. He tried to shake, to move, to reach out, to prove it wasn't so.

  Nothing happened. He had nothing to reach out with, or to.

  He tried merely to lower his chin to his chest, to make certain that it was there--and was terribly afraid that it was.

  It wasn't. He had no head to move, no chest to touch.

  Absorbed in these thoughts, he failed to notice that more and more "somethings" were filling in the void. And something else.

  Now he noticed it.

  Voices--No, not quite. Thoughts--like random thoughts collecting in his brain. Other people's thoughts.

  Gradually it was becoming apparent to him that he was not alone at all--that at least some of these other presences, perhaps a large number of them, were in fact other people. Some made no sense at all, but others radiated identifiable symbol connections. Many, most in fact, seemed to radiate the same panic that he had undergone only moments--hours?--before. A few were calm, resigned, or even expectant. Many were hopelessly insane.

  Babblebabblebabblebabblebabble...

  It rushed in at him like a living force, exploding inside his mind. He fought furiously for control, taken offguard by the sudden attack, but the sea of thoughts came on, like giant waves, each greater than the one before. He tried to concentrate, tried to drive them off, stem the tide. No matter what happened, he had to lock them out, keep them away!

  I am Paul Carleton Savage, Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, serial number 214-44-143OAR. I am Paul Carleton Savage, Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, serial number--

  BabblebabblebabbleBABBLEBABBLEBABBLE...

  I am Paul Carleton Savage, Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, serial--

  BABBLEBABBLEBABBLEBABBLEBABBLE...

  A face formed dimly in his mind, laughing at him, mocking him. It said, "BABBLEBABBLEBABBLEBABBLE..." It poured out with terrible force in a thousand tongues, ten thousand--all different, all speaking at once of different things, running the entire emotional range. It was a deadly face.

  "BABBLEBABBLEBABBLEBABBLEBABBLE..."

  It was McNally's face.

  Laughing, mocking, spewing out madness, it floated, weaved, and taunted him. An overpowering, unreasoning hatred welled up within him. Not this time! he tried to scream at it. Not again! You will not destroy me again! Not again! You hear? You understand? You Will Not Destroy Me! You hear me, you bastard? BASTARD! Hear me? YOU. WILL. NOT. DESTROY. MY. MIND!

  "Babblebabblebabblebabblebabble..." it continued, in its madness; but the head had retreated as he attacked, the volume lessened markedly.

  Hatred welled up in him; a fierce blast of hate shot out like a living thing from him and seemed to strike the bobbing figure.

  It screamed and shrank.

  He focused on the bobbing, weaving object. He faced it down as it continued to babble on in a chaos of random thoughts and tongues all at once; but it seemed to grow even more distant, hazier, so much so that even the torrent of thought that appeared to pour out of it was dampened to a quiet roar.

  The thing bobbed and reeled. It swooped around, seeking an opening. It came at him from each side. It came at him from all sides at the same time. Focusing on it, he beat it back with the measure of his hate and pride, fighting it on a plane he could not really comprehend.

  And now he was alone in the void once again, as if, in the midst of a cheering stadium, everyone but he was--in an instant--obliterated. One moment the enemy was there, all around him, on the attack. Then, in a time so sudden as to be immeasurable, everything was gone.

  "That's pretty damned good," came a clear, sharp voice in his mind. "Who the hell's McNally, anyway?"

  He would have jerked around if he'd had anything to do it with.

  "Who? What--?" he tried to vocalize.

  There was a chuckle. "Don't bother trying to talk. As you've figured out, you've got nothing left to vocalize with. Just think what you want to say and I'll pick it up."

  Some of the intense emotion with which he had fought the thing was still in him. "Just who the hell are you?" he lashed out at the voice. "And what the hell is going on here?"

  The Voice chuckled again. "Well, to answer the second question first, you're dead, of course. The enormous rush of thoughts you picked up were from the other--er--souls who died at the same moment. They'll come back, you know, when I let them."

  Savage felt the lingering terror return. Somehow he could accept being dead, but not the continual battle he had just been through. Not forever.

  "No," said the Voice, apparently hearing even those thoughts not directed to it, "not forever. You'll lose, eventually. Everybody do
es. Your self will crumble into that mass, which gets denser and denser as you naturally gravitate to those who've gone before--and are joined by those who've come after. Eventually your energy, your identity--your soul, if you will--all those thoughts and experiences that are you, will become one with all of them: a part of a collective mentality, a synthesis of mankind--in fact, of all living things that have ever existed or will exist on the Earth. That's the way things work."

  "What are you, then?"

  "Me? Well, you can think of me as God... an angel... or the Devil. Actually, I'm all of them--and none of them. For I'm not part of this synthesis but a product of a different one entirely."

  "I--I really don't understand anything you're telling me.

  As Savage said this, he was aware that, the longer he stalled, the longer he avoided the fate spelled out for him. The isolation in which he presently found himself was caused by the Voice, and could just as easily be lifted. He tried to imagine the horror he had fought--only ten times (a hundred, or a billion, perhaps?) more powerful. The Voice was right. He couldn't stand that off very long.

  "What's happening to you is part of a process of nature as normal as the birth and death of a star, or the falling of leaves," the Voice explained in a tone reminiscent of a lecturing college professor. "It is as universal as the laws of motion, or gravity, or thermodynamics. Ultimately, the Synthesis produces a massive collective intelligence of enormous power--the collective power of God, as you might comprehend Him. Not all get to this point. Most races die out too soon, or external factors intervene. For some reason, no two worlds' maturity periods ever overlap."

  "So what has this to do with you?"

  "My race has passed to yet a higher synthesis, which even I cannot fathom. Only two individuals of the race are left, each incomplete, each weak in comparison with the whole. Both of us are driven to our duty, which must be fulfilled before we can join our people."

  "Which is?"

  "To ensure that the next synthesis occurs in time to stop the chaos that threatens always from without! To perpetuate, to keep the wheels of nature moving smoothly!"

  "But what has all this to do with me, now?" asked Savage, puzzled.

  "My brother is a part of me. We are a product of the same synthesis. Yet, it has been a long time, and without the greater synthesis to support us, we have devolved. We have become parasitic, material, and, as we have continued our separate lives, quite different personalities." The Voice became grim. "There is a war going on, Savage, and I am looking for volunteers."

  Savage's mind whirled. Had the circumstances been any less bizarre, he would have dismissed all this as madness. Perhaps it was--he hadn't considered that.

  The Voice interrupted his thoughts.

  "The world lies below you, Savage--and above, and all around. It's your world and your destiny, and you shouldn't make light of it. We were a glorious people, Savage--and well yours might be, too. To be a part of that is the greatest glory that anyone can ever experience. We have that in common, my brother and I--we have both been at the pinnacle, in the company of, and part of, God--though we have fallen and are forever denied that again. We are both in Hell."

  "So what do you offer me if I refuse that Earthly destiny?" Savage asked, knowing he would take any offer--and knowing the Voice knew it, too.

  "You can't go to Hell, Savage, because you've never been in Paradise. The nature of what I shall do is such that you will be denied both. You will be forever in Limbo, never knowing any other experience, damned but never really knowing how much so. You would be condemned to live forever, and, as you will someday know, that is a true form of damnation."

  Savage felt excitement well up inside of him. Condemned to live forever. But to live! To get out of this! And yet--Faust must have felt the same, and the Devil was the Father of Lies.

  "What will I owe you in exchange?" he asked warily.

  "Service--for as long as I might require it. I was attracted to you, as to the others I have recruited and will recruit, by the strength of your mind and of your will. By the force of the hatred that allowed you your victory, however temporary, over those that lately sought to consume you.

  "While we have talked, I have taken a readout of your mind, your past, your personality and potential. You are certainly one of the men I need to aid me. You are a soldier. You were once a detective, before you were activated from your reserve unit. You are strong--far stronger than you know--and you are dangerous. I will realize those things you did not even know you possessed, and I will make you even stronger. And yours might--might--be the mission that wins the war. There are others like you as well, many others. But--I deny the glory of death to no man, for I could not do so even if I could guarantee his loyalty. The choice must be yours and freely made. Beyond this place--in death--is every mind of world history, from the one who discovered fire to the latest genius to pass on--and Hitler, too, and Stalin, and Genghis Khan. You can be part of them and their mission. Or of mine. You alone must choose."

  "You know."

  "Say it!"

  "I'll work for you. I will accept your offer and abide by it."

  "Very well. Restoration is a difficult thing--and a limited one. I must work with what I have, and not with what once was. Your body lies now in a morgue in Saigon, awaiting embalming and shipment to the United States. I can rearrange the molecules properly to make you live again, none the worse for wear--indeed, better than before--but I can work only with what I have. I do know where restoration can be done, and we'll get you there in due time."

  "What are you talking about?" Savage asked nervously.

  "McNally put a single M-16 bullet into your upper back, which shattered just about every bone in your torso. Child's play. It's a repair problem only. But the enemy sniper got you after that. Your right hand is still in the jungles of Area Five-C."

  Savage paused for a moment. "So you can make me whole with what I've still got, but you can't regrow the hand."

  "That's about it. Although, of course, after I'm through with you, should you lose the other one, it'll come back. Later on, I'll get you to a place of master biologists many light-years from here, where the hand can be replaced in a moment... But the injury will answer some questions, albeit weakly, about your recovery--and it'll get you out of the Army and home, where I need you."

  "Okay, I think I can live with it," Savage told the Voice, and somehow the remark sounded flip and funny--which it wasn't at all.

  I can live with it, he had said. Or not live without it...

  "Very well. It is done. The process is already in motion, and I have other things to attend to. I will contact you when you are ready."

  "But how will I know you?" Savage asked, almost calling after the Voice. "To whom will I go?" He almost said: "To whom do I belong?"

  "I call myself The Hunter, for that's as good as any, more descriptive of what I am and far less enigmatic than my brother's name, The Bromgrev, the meaning for which has escaped everyone. The Savage will recognize the Hunter: there is destiny in those linked names." The Voice paused for a second, then concluded, "It is ended. I shall see you in time."

  Savage was alone once again, but now there was a change. He sensed that he was returning, going back, even though the term had no meaning. He also sensed the others, rising from their incubators and going to join this new, metamorphosed creature he knew surrounded him.

  His world picture had been drastically changed. The Earth was one of many planets, perhaps millions, circling their suns, incubating components for the truly superior evolutionary creature of each world. Mystics through the ages had glimpses of the truth, but they could not comprehend--or did not want to comprehend--and misinterpreted what they had seen.

  But there were still holes. Just what did these--gods--do? If the metamorphosis occurred repeatedly in nature, it was necessary to survival. But whose? And against what did it guard?

  He would have time to ask the right questions now, he mused. All the time in the world.<
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  There was light, but everything was blurry. He ached like hell, his right arm throbbing as he had never known before, his every cell screaming at what had been done.

  He blinked repeatedly, and the scene came into focus, along with the fetid smells of the dead and its grisly contents.

  He was in a human meat locker, stored with the rest of the dead until they could be prepared and shipped home by Graves Registration.

  His lips felt dry and cracked, and he could not seem to generate any saliva in his mouth. Even so, he managed some movement, painful though it was--and managed to croak out one word in such a way that, if any had been able to hear in that terrible room, there would be no mistaking its intent.

  "McNally," he said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The pain subsided gradually.

  He was suddenly aware of the cold, and he struggled to get up. A stabbing pain went through him as he tried to rise by balancing himself on his right hand, and he fell off the little table on which he lay and went sprawling onto the floor. Pain tore through his back, rump, and the underside of his left arm. He shook his head violently from side to side to clear it, and looked at his left arm.

  Parts of the flesh had been ripped away where his newly warmed body had touched the cold metal table. He stared at the damaged area for a little while. He couldn't take his eyes off it.

  Slowly, methodically, and visibly, the skin was regrowing over the injured area. It reminded him somewhat of the stop-action photography of a plant opening and closing. As the skin repaired itself, the pain subsided, then vanished completely. Soon only a few flecks of dried blood remained to show that any damage had ever been done.

  His back and rump no longer hurt, either.

  So that was how it would be.

  A sudden, sharp, incredibly intense pain struck him in the middle of his back, so severe and unexpected that he cried out in agony. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. He heard a tiny noise of something hard striking the floor.