My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny

Author:Roger Zelazny [Zelazny, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf

When I pulled into the harbor, the lights were on. As I climbed to the pier, her voice came to me over a loudspeaker.

She greeted me by name, my real name, which I hadn't heard spoken in a long while, and she asked me to come in.

I moved across the pier and up to the front of the building. The door stood ajar. I entered.

It was a long, low room, completely Oriental in decor. She wore a green silk kimono. She knelt on the floor, a tea service laid before her.

Please come and be seated, she said.

I nodded, removed my shoes, crossed the room, and sat down.

O-cha do desu-ka?' she asked.

Itadakimasu.

She poured, and we sipped tea for a time. After the second cup I drew an ashtray toward me.

Cigarette? I asked.

I don't smoke, she said. But I wish you would. I try to take as few noxious substances into my own system as possible. I suppose that is how the whole thing began.

I lit one for me.

I've never met a genuine telepath before, I said, that I know of.

I'd trade it for a sound body, she said, any day. It wouldn't even have to be especially attractive.

I don't suppose there is even a real need for me to ask my questions, I said.

No, she said, not really. How free do you think our wills might be?

Less every day, I said.

She smiled.

I asked that, she said, because I have thought a lot about it of late. I thought of a little girl I once knew, a girl who lived in a garden of terrible flowers. They were beautiful, and they were there to make her happy to look upon. But they could not hide their odor from her, and that was the odor of pity. For she was a sick little girl. So it was not their colors and textures from which she fled, but rather the fragrance which few knew she could detect. It was a painful thing to smell it constantly, and so in solitude she found her something of peace. Had it not been for her ability she would have remained in the garden.

She paused to take a sip of tea.

One day she found friends, she continued, in an unexpected place. The dolphin is a joyous fellow, his heart uncluttered with the pity that demeans. The way of knowing that had set her apart, had sent her away, here brought her close. She came to know the hearts, the thoughts of her new friends more perfectly than men know those of one another. She came to love them, to be one of their family.

She took another sip of tea, then sat in silence for a time, staring into the cup.

There are great ones among them, she said finally, such as you guessed at earlier. Prophet, seer, philosopher, musician, there is no man-made word I know of to describe this sort of one, or the function he performs. There are, however, those among them who voice the dreamsong with

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