The Ring by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony [Anthony, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781401043988
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1968-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

1

For Jeff, it was like waking from sleep into nightmare. Slowly the white blur above his head resolved into a ceiling. Slowly the pavement and dirt under him became a firm hospital bed. An asceptic, white-shrouded—

He was in a hospital!

He sat up, his innards hurting. He had been very sick, apart from the fighting; the ring must have done that to him, though it had never made him nauseous before.

"Jeff!" It was Alice, leaning toward him from a chair beside his bed. Ralph Blois, the G&G foreman, lounged beside her. Jeff felt a stiffness on his face and shoulder and discovered light bandaging. Yes—he had been hurt, and severely, too, if the mechanical medics had not been able to heal the wounds outright; but not knocked out. What had happened?

"A little matter of an overload," Alice said. "You can't fight Ultra Conscience. You should have realized that by this time, you stubborn hero." She smiled, thanking him for that stubbornness. "Also, the whistle...."

"But—" Then it came back. He had gone mad. He must have. Seeing the old man dying, determined to save him but blocked by the ring; knowing that Alice could only get help if he occupied the punks a little longer....

He remembered using the peek-a-boo defense, good so long as his hands and arms held out. He had knocked away the chain but couldn't use it himself. The bent-eared one groaning on the ground, clutching his possibly broken kneecap—and the ring raging for that offense. He had hurt somebody...! The broken-nosed one still with the knife but holding the wrist, cursing, kicking at Jeff ineffectively. The third, with the scraggly beard, on his feet again, the hand not holding the club cupped around his Adam's-apple—and the ring reacting to that, too. The fourth one, angry because he had been balked in his attack on Alice, an ice-pick suddenly in his hand—

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The searing pain of that point slicing down the side of his face, the stab just missing the eye it had been aimed at—or had it missed? His own rage at the situation, where even four-to-one odds against him did not change the so-called morality of Ultra Conscience; the kill-rage, uncaring of pain—

And abominable nausea, as though an internal gyro were shaking all his organs. That would be the sonic pacifier, striking down everyone within its range. Unconsciousness.

Dave had died. He knew that. Dave had been victimized by a machine-morality that could not yield to human necessity.

"Jeff?" Alice asked, alarmed. "You're not... again? You've been under drugs for hours. If a policebot hadn't come right away and taken you to the hospital—"

Jeff tried to relax. Hate was no good. Hate was bad.

He lied.

Hate was good. Revenge was sweet. He was glad he had hurt those killers.

He felt his system tingle with the drugs he knew were supposed to deaden the effect of the ring. Its shock was muted, for the moment—but so was Jeff Font's respect for Earthly values.

He relaxed.

"Dave died," she said unhappily.

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