The Best of Poul Anderson by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1976-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Then the last trace of what he had done with his genetic endowment, and what had been done to it, was scrubbed from him and he was dead.

Death was a stormwind. It was as if he were blown, whirled, cast up and down and up again, in a howl and a whistle and a noise of monstrous gallopings. He did not know whether the wind was searing him with cold or heat. Nor did he wonder about it, for the lightnings blinded his eyes and the thunders rattled his teeth.

Eyes? flashed a moment’s startlement. Teeth? But I'm dead. They’ll use my body to make someone else. No, wait, that’s not right. They’ll cremate my body. I took voluntary euthanasia when I couldn’t endure my own misery any longer. No, I didn’t, either. I was wiped out of my own brain after they’d made me so miserable that it didn’t really matter.

“Zero,” God counted, “one, ten, eleven, one hundred, one hundred ten.”

Bailey grabbed for reality, any reality, in the torrents of night. Dizziness sucked him through an infinite spiral. But the only reality was himself. He clutched that to him. I am Douglas Bailey, he thought against the devouring octopus. I am ... I am ... a sociologist. A madman. What else? I died twice, after two different horrible lives.

Were there more? I can’t remember. The wind blows too hard.

Wait. A glimpse. No, gone.

“One thousand eleven,” counted God the Simulator, “one thousand one hundred, one thousand one hundred one, one thousand one hundred ten.”

Why are You doing this to me? Bailey screamed. You’re as bad as they are. They killed me twice. Once with indifference. They called it freedom—freedom to choose death—but they didn’t care about us, except they hoped we would reduce our own numbers. They withdrew from us, established automatic social machinery to process us, did their best to forget us. And again they killed me with hate. It had to be hate, cruelty, death wish, no matter how much they talked.of cure. What else? How can you take a human being and make an object(ive) of him, unless your real aim is to make him less than human—make him a thing that crawls at your feet—because you hate his humanity?

“Ten thousand, ten thousand one, ten thousand ten, ten thousand eleven.”

Space twisted back on itself and time split like the delta of the Styx. The wind blew and blew.

My problem was real. I was suffering. I needed help and love.

Click. The wind stopped. The darkness waited.

Please, wept Douglas Bailey. Help me. Care about me. Give me your love.

It was so.

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