Six

 

 

The middle-aged Asian male who strolled into the Baja Naja outdoor restaurant just off Mill did not draw a second glance from the late-lunch crowd of students, teachers, office workers, retirees, and tourists. In no way did his physique, posture, or expression impact on the bustling dynamic of the outdoor congregation. No one noticed that his stride was more confident than was typical of his age and demeanor, or that the slight upward curl of his lips might indicate a general contempt for the more youthful, more attractive people gathered in the popular hangout.

He took a table by himself, in the back, away from the street, and ordered quietly and without fuss, barely taking the time to glance at the menu. Cody didn’t even know he existed until the man rose, picked up his glass of ice water, and approached him.

“Good morning, Professor Westcott.” The visitor glanced at his watch. “It is still morning, I suppose. I see that you are alone. Mind if I join you?”

Cody considered the stranger, struggling to place the polite enigma who was blocking his view of the street. “Do I know you?” His smile was instinctive, automatic, and unfounded.

“No sir, but you will.” Without waiting for Cody’s answer, the man slipped into the vacant chair on the other side of the round, glass-topped table. “You may call me Uthu.”

Not, “my name is . . .” or “Hi, I’m . . .”, but “You may call me . . .” Much bigger than his visitor, and younger, Cody felt no immediate unease in the midst of the busy restaurant. The man did not act hostile. Like any large American university, ASU was visited by its share of nut cases, each claiming to represent the righteous while indifferently trampling on the rights of others. So far, he saw no reason to think ill of this quiet little fellow, other than that he was a trifle forward. His immediate concern was to finish the remainder of the club sandwich on his plate.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Uthu before.”

“Distinctive people should have distinctive names.” The man smiled, his appearance anything but distinctive. He was nothing if not assured, Cody reflected. “You, for example, have a distinctive name.”

“Westcott?” Cody’s response was muffled by his mouthful of sandwich.

“You are being humorous. Coshocton, of course. That is Amerindian, is it not?”

Cody chewed. “Commanche/Cherokee. What’s Uthu?”

Again the unnervingly confident half smile. “Say, Asian. No need to be specific. To us such things are a relic of another existence, before we became venues.”

Now his visitor was starting to make nut noises, Cody decided. Glancing around casually as he wiped his hands with a linen napkin, he scanned the street for signs of a passing cop. None were in sight. He also paid attention to the man’s hands. At the moment they rested on the table, in plain sight. If one slid toward a pocket, Cody felt he might have to react. Still, the Department of Archaeology was not typically a destination of deranged individuals. They tended to favor the animal research center, or the student newspaper, or the science labs that did work for the military. Research on bones and pots did not engender the kind of primeval passion that normally led to physical assault.

“I see,” he replied carefully. Waving a bit too energetically in the direction of the waiter, he called for his check. It was time to go. “And what, if you don’t mind my asking, are you a venue for?”

“This.” Leaning forward, the man went slack as half-a-dozen tendrils erupted from his eye sockets. Each one terminated in a single, smaller eye that was a venomous and sickly yellow. Thicker tentacles tinged with green burst forth from his stomach, while from the vicinity of his crotch emerged a set of black jaws lined with multiple rows of small, sharp teeth.

Cody flailed wildly and nearly fell off his chair. His fluttering fingers swept through reaching eyes and tentacles and blackness. A cold dampness enveloped his hands, as if they had been plunged into a pool of liquid death. Tiny, vicious mouths snapped spitefully at his flesh but did no damage. Several diners glanced in his direction, only to return indifferently to their half-eaten meals and half-finished conversations. No one saw anything more than a lanky young man who had momentarily slipped out of his chair.

The eyeballs on stalks withdrew, the tendrils contracted, and the vile ebon maw sank back out of sight between the man’s legs. He blinked once, as if he had momentarily been asleep, or comatose. No smile accompanied his revived consciousness.

Cody wanted to run away, as he had run from a nest of baby rattlers when at the age of seven he slipped and became trapped in a narrow arroyo on his uncle’s ranch. It was a beautiful day. He was surrounded by happy, active people content in their work and leisure. Outside, beyond the iron fence that marked the limits of the outdoor restaurant, ubiquitous English sparrows hopped energetically to and fro, scavenging for table crumbs. A pair of rocks protruded from landscaping gravel. From each rock a saw-edged shaft projected vertically, weaving slowly back and forth like a lethal yucca. The sparrows ignored it. So did the people using the sidewalk beyond. They could not see it. Only Cody could see it. He—and Uthu.

“What are you?” Cody spoke slowly as he straightened his chair beneath him. The monstrosities abiding within the smaller man could not molest him or they would certainly already have done so. Evidently they were restricted to one host at a time. It was instructive, the cool scientific part of his mind noted automatically, to have confirmed the supposition that a single person could play host to more than one of the disquieting parasites.

“A man, like yourself. Human, but one who has given himself over to the Interlopers.”

“So that’s what they’re called.” It felt unreasonably good to be able to finally give a name to the diverse miscellany of malevolent nightmares.

“It is what we who are given over have chosen to call them. They have no name for their collective selves. We who are given over do not ‘talk’ to them in the accepted sense, nor do we share anything like a recognizable telepathy. We must rely on feelings, sensations, certain urges.”

They had moved into territory wholly new to Cody, a place where he had not even ventured to speculate. “You mean, you voluntarily serve as a host to these things?”

“Not at first. No one becomes a host intentionally. The great majority of humans who are called upon have no awareness of their altered state. They are blessed by a sustained ignorance of their condition.”

Around them, the sun was shining, pretty girls were laughing, young men posturing energetically. Food and drink were being affably consumed, and traffic flowed smoothly on Mill. And he was sitting outdoors at the Baja Naja, toying with the remains of a perfectly agreeable if unspectacular lunch while discussing a kind of previously unsuspected diabolic state of being with an extensively parasitized visitor from another continent. He needed a drink, but the restaurant did not serve liquor until after five o’clock. Iced tea would have to do.

“You say they are blessed by their ignorance.” Cody continued to watch the man’s hands, which remained in plain view. “Doesn’t sound to me like being ‘given over’ is a condition to be desired.”

“It is not,” the man assured him somberly. “One leads a life of unending misery and despair, of physical pain and mental torment. But there are compensations.”

“Yeah, it sounds like it.”

“Sarcasm is misplaced in a scientist.” Uthu continued without missing a beat. “Sometimes when I think I cannot stand the suffering, when my brain will tear itself to pieces from the sheer unrelenting anguish of serving as a host, I console myself with the knowledge that I will live longer than all but a very few of my fellow humans. It is not immortality, not by any means, but it is something. A crumb of a gift, but a gift nonetheless.”

“So these Interlopers, they can extend a life?” Cody prompted him.

A slow nod provided an answer. “Once comfortably settled within a cooperative venue, they have that ability, yes.”

“That’s no gift.” Cody was at once fascinated and horrified by the parasitized man sitting across the table from him. “No parasite wants its host to die. If that happens, it has to go through the trouble of finding another.” He frowned in remembrance. “I’ve passed my hands through a number of them without suffering more than a quick chill. Yet you say that once inside, they cause pain and torment.”

Uthu nodded somberly. “That is what they want. They do not, cannot, induce cerebral discomfort directly. It follows as a consequence of mental anguish.”

“Yet in spite of that you serve as a venue,” the archaeologist murmured.

“Yes, we serve. What choice do we have? Once infected, it is not possible to be made clean again. For that to happen, an Interloper must leave of its own accord.”

“Do they ever do that? Abandon a host, I mean?”

“No.” The Asian’s face was drawn but resigned. “Never. Not until the host dies.”

“Or turns psychotic.” Cody speculated pensively.

“Not at all.” Uthu was quick to correct him. “Interlopers prosper amidst insanity. They thrive on the milk of madness.”

“I’ve seen people become infected. None of them showed any awareness of what was happening to them. Why are you different?”

“Some of us, a very few, have within our minds the ability to sense that we have been contaminated. This makes us valuable to the Interlopers. They exist on a plane adjacent to our own. The many points of congruence are subtler than you think. While they can move freely within rock and solid wood, physically the Interlopers cannot affect our world. But they can affect those few like myself, and we in turn can affect our plane of existence. Like so.”

Cody flinched, but the man’s hand was not reaching for him. Instead, it swept aside the water glass that had been set before him. Cold water and ice went flying, just missing the couple seated at the table nearest to them. The girl rose sharply, wiping at where her thigh lay bare beneath the short skirt. Her male companion looked irritated.

“Sorry—we’re sorry. It was an accident,” Cody apologized hastily. Sufficiently mollified, the young couple returned to their meal. Sitting back down, the archaeologist glared across the table. “There was no call for that.”

“On the contrary, there is always call for that,” Uthu assured him quietly. “And for—other things.”

Cody’s eyes widened. “You killed Harry Keeler!”

The Asian smiled ever so thinly. Was he by nature this calm and cavalier, the archaeologist wondered, or was he being wholly controlled by outside influences? Or in his case, inside ones. How much of what he was saying, how many of his words, were his own, and how much and how many the province of something else? Was he an independent human being working in concert with the horrors that now possessed him, body and soul, or was he nothing more than a slave, a puppet, responding to the pestilent strings that now penetrated his brain as well as his body? His was clearly a case of extreme parasitism. Had his Interlopers left him any individuality at all, or was he little more than a shell of the human being he had once been? The answers, Cody decided, were a matter for biologists to determine. Or a psychic, or possibly an exorcist, though there was nothing Catholic about the suave Uthu’s possession.

“No. It was not I.”

“I’ve seen enough of these creatures to know that they can’t physically strike out at a person. You have to make contact with their habitation for them to be able to affect you. Or they can make contact by having an infected individual impact on another, just like they’re making you talk to me, right now.”

Uthu nodded. “A good scientist is a trained observer. You perceive, note, and draw inferences. They would like you to be like me.” Seeing that Cody was watching his hands closely, the visitor smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to grab you. They can only pass from a natural habitation to a human, not from one human to another. Otherwise it would not have been necessary to annul the man you call Harry Keeler. He could simply have been co-opted.”

“Are you going to try and kill me?” Cody was amazed at his own degree of calm, sitting outside in the shade, surrounded by laughing, conversing, debating people, discussing his own demise with a stranger whose actions were being directed by invisible, hitherto unknown parasites inimical in nature and composition. It beggared belief in ways that would have given pause to a theoretical physicist.

How many dimensions did they now claim made up the universe? Eleven, wasn’t it? Or ten? Or was the matter still up for debate? Were these Interlopers intruders from one of those five dimensions kept neatly “rolled up” by physicists? Were humans their point of contact with this dimension? And what, exactly did they get out of invading and influencing and residing within humans themselves?

Despite Uthu’s flattering remark, Cody was well aware that he did not know nearly enough yet to draw conclusions; not about the Interlopers, nor about the individuals they infected.

“If necessary.” Uthu replied calmly to the archaeologist’s question. “Keeler was abolished because he was in possession of the written formula for the elixir that enables humans to see Interlopers. That was a very dangerous thing. If humans could see the Interlopers, they would avoid them. Then no Interloper would be able to feed.”

“ ‘Feed’?” The revelation conjured a storm of images in Cody’s brain, each more repellent than the one before.

The Asian did not elaborate. “Naturally, the Interlopers wish to prevent such a calamity from happening. Since the dawn of mankind they have usually managed to do so. The Chachapoyan shamans were an exception, and their rising civilization a concern, until they were conquered and absorbed by the Incas.”

“So these Interlopers influenced the Incas to overthrow the Chachapoyans?”

“Yes.” Uthu smiled thoughtfully. “Though the Incas would have done it eventually anyway, just as they subjugated every other Andean civilization. The Interlopers simply assisted where possible—and of course, enjoyed the fruits of their labors: war, famine, despair. Once the Incas had conquered all their neighbors and absorbed them, their Empire of the Sun grew too content to support many Interlopers. That was when the Spanish arrived. So few in number, they could never have vanquished the Inca Empire without some—assistance.

“It became imperative that the Empire be destroyed, because when the Chachapoyan cities were incorporated into the Inca kingdom, so was their knowledge of the Interlopers, and other things. There was a great danger that the Incas would disseminate this new knowledge.”

While Cody the individual feared for his life, Cody the archaeologist was fascinated by his visitor’s tale. “So, after helping the Incas defeat the Chachapoyans and others, they turned on them and helped Pizarro and his conquistadors to conquer the Empire?”

“Not exactly. They helped the Incas to lose to the conquistadors. There is a difference.” The smile widened unpleasantly. “Remember the reactions of the Incas to the arrival of the Spanish. While they could see many of the Interlopers, they could not keep track of them all. It was the Interlopers who started the fight between Atahualpa and his brother, thus splitting and weakening a previously united Empire at its most vulnerable moment. It was an Interloper who influenced the Inca to stupidly permit himself to be taken captive by the Spaniards. After that, it was Interlopers who spread divisiveness and fear among those Incas who were still determined to resist the invaders.” Sitting back in his chair, Uthu sipped at his glass of water.

“You know how the Incas were terrified of Spaniards on horseback, how they thought they were a frightful combination of man and beast? They suffered from no such fears until the Interlopers spread those weaknesses among them. Why should they think such things, when they had always had around them four-legged beasts of burden such as llamas and alpacas and vicuñas, unless they had been encouraged and inflamed to think differently? Why do you think the vast reinforcements they could call upon did not come to the aid of their rulers until it was too late, allowing the Spaniards to carve up the Empire piece by piece? One of the Interlopers’ great strengths is their ability to work in subtle ways.”

“They influenced and weakened the whole Empire in that fashion?” Cody was nonplused. Like all of his colleagues, he had always admired the Incas and marveled at the ease with which a ruthless but pitifully small band of invading Spaniards had destroyed an Empire that reached from Colombia to Chile.

“No. It was not possible to taint every Inca. Only those in power, the nobles and the generals and their immediate subordinates, were affected. And only a few of them, at that.” This time, the visitor’s smile was entirely ruthless, contorted by something utterly inhuman. “The Incas, fortunately, loved to be around rock and stone. Selective infestation could be carried out in a prompt and efficient manner. Occasionally, for various reasons, it could not be accomplished appropriately or in time. Ollyantaytambo was the most glaring example.”

Cody started. “The Incas beat the Spaniards there. Twice.”

The Asian nodded. “Until the commanding general and his staff could be visited, and persuaded to do the necessary thing. Only then did the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba fall to the Spaniards.” Gazing off into the distance, the man who was no longer unconditionally human wore a look of bliss. “Soon after that, the Inquisition arrived.”

“Yes, and the consequences for—” Cody broke off, his train of thought interrupted by yet another repellent revelation. “More work of these Interlopers?”

Uthu’s smile was positively feral. “You do draw conclusions well.” He pushed back from the table. “We’re not going to kill you. For now. Not because we can’t. Your ability to see those whom we abide does not protect you from we who have been blessed.” Even as Uthu spoke the words, Cody thought he could see something still human, something chained and suffering in the throes of ultimate unending torment, screaming to get out from behind the Asian’s too-bright eyes. “We are the arms, the appendages of Those Who Abide. We can work physically what they cannot. This we do for them.

“We will not kill you because it is widely known that you were working with Harry Keeler. Coming so close to his, your unexpected demise would arouse suspicions. It has therefore been decided to let you live.” A different sort of smile, warm and ingratiating, creased the Asian’s visage. It was as faux as the wood painted to look like marble that lined much of the main reading room of the library. “All you have to do is give up any research on the Chachapoyan shamanic codex, destroy your existing notes on it, and have nothing further to do with the subject. Oh yes,” he added pleasantly, “and stop interfering with the established activities of the Interlopers in this part of the world. You may observe them all you wish. It is only asked that you not intervene.”

Cody had listened without comment. “Anything else?”

“Your wife will no doubt question your abrupt termination of this particular line of research. You must convince her that you have legitimate and innocuous reasons for doing so. Perhaps heightened interest in other aspects of your specialty. The rationale you concoct is of no importance to us. And of course you must also see to it that she does not pursue the work that you are to abandon. Should she do so, there could be—consequences.” Uthu hesitated only briefly. “She is very pretty, your mate.”

Cody’s expression darkened. “How the hell would you know? What have you been doing? Where have you been?” Conscious that several diners had turned to look in his direction, he forced himself to lower his voice. “You keep away from Kelli. She has nothing to do with this. In fact, she thinks I was crazy for spending all the time on it that I did, especially working with Harry.”

“Then that will make it easy for her to accept your change of focus.” The visitor rose from his chair. “Despite what you may think, we who serve Those Who Abide are still human. We still have human desires, and needs. Remember that, lest you are tempted to ignore this warning. Defy Those Who Abide, and you will find yourself envying the man Harry Keeler.” Perhaps aware that he might be erring on the side of challenge, he reached down to pick up the check for Cody’s lunch.

“Why should you care, Coschocton Westcott? Humankind has survived and prospered in the presence of the Interlopers. It will continue to do so even in the presence of your silence. Leave the world as you found it a year ago. You know something of people, alive as well as dead. Are they not better off not knowing? Reveal all to them, and there would be panic, hysteria, and a reign of terror and death.”

“Just as there has always been,” Cody replied tersely. “The question is: How much of that is due to natural, guileless human activity, how much to enduring species immaturity, and how much to the presence of and interference by Interlopers? We don’t seem to have done too well, to have acted very intelligently, while they have been active among us, influencing and persuading and ‘feeding.’ Maybe we’d be a lot better off without them. Maybe we would even grow up a little.” Fearful but determined, he leaned forward across the table.

“I’m no biologist, but I have yet to encounter an instance of an animal that’s not better off in the absence of parasites.”

Uthu did not withdraw from the younger, bigger man’s presence. “It is not for you to decide. Not for you, or me, or any other person.” Within his visitor, Cody continued to sense the shrunken remnants of a real individual human being howling to emerge from a very private and particularly loathsome prison. There was nothing he could do for this Uthu, he knew. He found himself wondering: Could he do anything for anyone else?

They seemed to know everything. About him, his work, even Kelli. He could not make any decisions without considering her. It would be easier if she believed him. Or maybe, just maybe, it was better that she did not.

Was it so very much that Uthu was asking on behalf of the repulsiveness that abided in the world? One empire would always conquer another, with or without the outside intervention of Interlopers. People would always fight, argue, bicker and disagree, whether influenced by abiding Interlopers or not. Or—would they? Exactly how much of human misery and despair was a natural consequence of sheer existence, and how much due to the interference of this vast panoply of unearthly parasitic beings? If he could alter that equation of suffering, even a little, did he not have a duty to do so?

His research had given him the gift of sight in a world where blindness to a widespread, specific evil reigned unchallenged. Did he not owe it to his fellow man to utilize that talent to the best of his ability, and for the greater good? It was a measure of the Interlopers’ concern that they had gone to the trouble of murdering one individual and threatening another to keep knowledge of their existence, and their influence on human affairs, covert. Perhaps they were not so omnipotent as the hapless Uthu insinuated.

If their intention was to frighten him, they could have chosen a more intimidating figure than the comparatively diminutive Asian. Maybe they exerted complete control over only a very few humans. Of course, he reminded himself as he sat at the table and ignored what remained of his lunch, it did not take a very large or powerful person to pull the trigger of a pistol. But they did not want him dead. Not if they could avoid it. Hadn’t Uthu just said so? Coming so close to Harry Keeler’s death, it would prompt inquiries more extensive than usual, give rise to questions they would rather not have asked.

For a little while then, for an indeterminate amount of time, he felt he could count on a modicum of safety. That was fortunate, because he had no intention whatsoever of complying with Uthu’s demands. Once the turmoil caused by Professor Keeler’s violent death had passed beyond the point of evening television newsworthiness, someone would come for him in the night. Him, and doubtless Kelli as well. Or they would be accosted on the street by an armed mugger, who would “panic” and shoot them both. Despite the Asian’s reassuring speech, Cody had no illusions about what lay in store for him. Unless he could find a means of acquiring more positive protection than the knowledge he now possessed and could not forswear, he was a man without a future. The Interlopers would not let anyone who knew of their existence live. Why should they, when humans were so easy to kill?

They would tolerate his survival until they felt the time was right and that it was safe for another member of the university’s faculty to depart this plane of existence without incurring a host of unanswerable questions. Even though Kelli did not believe his stories of otherworldly apparitions entering and somehow feeding on unwary human beings, they would kill her, too. His wife was a loose end who subsequent to his unexpected demise might turn into a loose cannon. He strongly suspected that Those Who Abide could be counted on not to leave a mess.

But what could he do? What he had managed to decipher so far of the Chachapoyan codex said nothing about a means for protecting oneself from the influence of the Interlopers. Was there, could there be, such a thing? And if it existed, how was he to go about finding it? There had to be something. If not, then the Chachapoyans could not have raised up the remarkable mountain civilization that eventually fell to the rapacious Incas.

There remained a trove of photographs of glyphs and carvings that awaited explication. Far from abandoning his work, he would throw himself back into it with a vengeance. He had no idea how much time remained to him, how long the Interlopers and their human vassals would wait before deciding it was more hazardous to their activities to leave him alive than render him dead. Meanwhile, he would trust no one, and would watch his back.

They had not been blatant in their execution of poor Harry Keeler. No one had walked up to the chemist and stuck a gun in his face. And Harry had been given no warning, had had no idea what was coming. He, Cody Westcott, was forewarned. He could keep watch.

His decision was made. Aside from his own welfare, there was too much potential for the general good riding on his continued research for him to quit now.

Which was undoubtedly why the Interlopers were so anxious to put a stop to it.