The Werewolf Principle

30

The pyramid stood to the left, and in front of the row of seats. It glowed dully, pulsating slightly, and out from it hung a curtain of light.

'Don't go too close, the captain said. 'You might frighten it.

Elaine did not answer. She stared at the pyramid and the horror and the wonder of it rose in her throat to choke her.

'You can go down two or three more rows of seats, the captain said. 'It might be dangerous if you tried to get too close. We don't really know.

Words forced themselves up and out of her. 'Frighten it? she asked.

'I don't know, the captain said. 'That's the way it acts. As if it might be frightened of us. Or suspicious of us. Or maybe just doesn't want anything to do with us. It wasn't like this until recently. It was blacked out, a piece of emptiness, as if there were nothing there. Creating a world of its own, with all defences up.

'And now he knows that we won't harm him?

'Him?

'Andrew Blake, she said.

'You knew him, miss? Mr Wilson said so.

'I saw him three times, she said.

'About knowing we won't hurt him, the captain said. 'Maybe that is it. Some of the scientists think so. A lot of them have tried to study it — pardon me, Miss Horton — have tried to study him. But they don't get too far. Nothing much to work on.

'They're sure? she asked. 'They're sure it's Andrew Blake?

'Down underneath the pyramid, the captain told her. 'Down at the base of it, on the right-hand side.

'The robe! she said. 'That was the one I gave him!

'Yes. The one that he was wearing. It's down there on the floor. Just the corner of it sticking out.

She took a step down the aisle.

'Not too far, the captain warned. 'Not too close.

She took another step and halted.

This is foolish, she thought. If he is there, he knows. He'd know that it is me and he would not be frightened — he'd know I have for him nothing but my love.

The pyramid pulsated gently.

But perhaps he doesn't know, she told herself. Perhaps he has locked himself against the world and if that is what he's done, he had reason to.

How must it be, she wondered, to know that your mind is the mind of another man — a loaned mind since you can have none of your own, because man's ingenuity was not quite great enough to fabricate a mind? Ingenuity sufficient to fashion bone and flesh and brain, but not to fashion mind. And how much worse, perhaps, to know that you were a part of two other minds — at least two other minds.

'Captain? she asked.

'Yes, Miss Horton.

'Do the scientists know how many minds there are? Could it be more than three?

'They don't seem to know, he said. 'Granted the situation as it stands, there might not be a limit.

No limit, she thought. Room for an infinity of minds, for all the thought that lay in the universe.

'I am here, she said, speaking silently to the creature that had been Andrew Blake. 'I am here. Can't you tell I'm here? If you ever need me, if you change back into a man again…

But why should he change back into a man again? Perhaps he had changed to this so he need not be a man, so that he need not face a humanity that he could not share.

She turned and took a hesitant step towards the chapel's front, then turned back once more.

The pyramid was shining softly and it seemed so peaceful and so solid, yet withdrawn, that her throat constricted and tears came to her eyes.

I will not weep, she told herself, fiercely. I will not weep, for whom would I be weeping? For Andrew Blake? For myself? For the befuddled race of man?

Not dead, she thought. But worse than death, perhaps. If he had been a man and dead, she could have walked away. She could have said goodbye.

Once he had turned to her for help. Now he was beyond her help, or any human help. Perhaps, she thought, he was beyond all humanity.

She turned again.

'I'll leave now, she said, 'Captain, please; would you walk beside me.

He took her arm and walked beside her down the aisle.