*don't open the door don't open the door don't let them open the door but it will open and I think I can't take any more I know I can't but more keeps happening*
*please please please please don't hurt me why won't it stop hurting stop hurting stop hurting never stops hurting*
*finish finish finish finish finish me finish me finish me*
*nothing to hang onto nothing I can even see but hands and eyes and more hands cold hard hands and things and surfaces but eyes are colder and harder*
*let me go let me go let me go*
*can't scream want to can't scream that sound is all there is I have a mouth but I can't scream please let me please*
*they move around like ghosts like I'm a ghost but then I'd be dead want to be dead want to be dead please let me be dead no no if I'm dead now this will never change please death please please change this change me change me to nothing nothing can hurt nothing there's nothing to hurt*
*but I already am nothing nothing to them nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing not a thing but I am a thing please stop please stop*
*why*
***
Lex didn't often have trouble finding words; usually his challenge was to pick out the most effective ones from the many that crowded his brain. But trying to find words now was like trying to pull a goldfish from a pond using only his toes. Arkin's words could mean only that somebody had found not only extraterrestrial, intelligent life, but found it here on earth.
Arkin was leading him through storage rooms which, while not actually dusty, gave that impression. Without warning, the older man turned and Lex nearly ran into him. With the automatic, "Sor-" that came from his mouth, he found he was capable of speech again.
"Does this mean that there *is* intelligent life from another planet?"
Arkin nodded silently.
"Here?"
"Here."
Lex sensed so much self-questioning behind his unmoving expression that he wasn't able to stop his own question, though as he spoke it sounded ridiculous. "It's not you, is it?" When it was out, he realized that not only was the question ridiculous, but that he'd spoken in the excited quaver of an adolescent.
Arkin smiled, fleetingly. "No." Lex wasn't sure--had the astronomer's face always had that sadness behind it, and he had just learned to recognize it, or was it new? The expression now seemed almost as organic to him as his features. "I'm going to ask you something now, Mr. President, now that you've had a chance to absorb this." A tiny, detached part of Lex's mind commented that of the two of them, the President of the United States had far less of an air of authority.
"Terrible things have been done to him, in the name of science as well as far less illustrious goals. He has been cruelly exploited, though it seems that he never wished to harm a living thing."
"He?" Arkin was so precise in his speech, the choice of pronoun couldn't be just convenience.
"He. For the first years of his life here, he not only passed as a human but was raised as one. We don't know if even the people who raised him knew of his origins. Or if he did. Then-" He raised a hand and let it drop.
"Somebody found out?"
"Somebody found out. Somebody found out and what was apparently an innocent and harmless being was thrown into a hell made especially for him." Arkin's smile was twisted with bitterness. "People are made to suffer terribly for being different. If there is one rule of history, that is it. It might have seemed to a detached observer that in a few parts of the world that was changing. But it hadn't changed enough or in time for him."
Lex could well imagine but his brain shied away from that like a whipped horse. "He was raised as human? What...what's his name?"
"That question was one of the few that wasn't too trivial for them to record. As he was sold from one to another and again to another, notes and observations were part of each sale but nobody added that."
Dehumanizing. Except the being, who perhaps thought he was human, never was. A name, so trivial and yet so vital. "What do you call him, then?"
Arkin chuckled but with only faint amusement. "Among ourselves, Al." He waited for a wince of comprehension at the feeble, sad joke. "Not having anything to call him to his face, we avoid it."
"We?"
"My sister. A practicing psychiatrist. Everything she has attempted is as ineffective as superstition. Or even more so, sometimes superstition has its own effect." He grimaced. "He was raised as human and I cannot believe that it has been ineffective because he's an alien. I think it's because the damage is so profound."
"Can'st thou minister to a mind diseased?" He wasn't even aware of having spoken until he heard the sound of his voice trailing off.
Arkin locked his eyes on Lex's. "Mr. President, I need your word that you will do him no harm." The words seemed to resonate in his ears as sonorously as organ chords. "You are a good man, Mr. President, but what he represents is great temptation. If it would be best for him--and for you as a man with a conscience--to forget this conversation, I ask you to do that. If you want to see him, you must promise that you will not harm him."
"I won't promise not to hurt him. I promise to protect him and help him in any way possible. You have my word." Arkin's eyes seemed to examine not just the words and the voice but to be weighing him for truth like the Egyptian god of justice weighed the hearts of the dead against the feather of justice. He must have been satisfied, as he turned to leave the room, but holding the door for Lex to proceed him.
Reviews inspire the Muse! Or at least her secretary...
*please please please please don't hurt me why won't it stop hurting stop hurting stop hurting never stops hurting*
*finish finish finish finish finish me finish me finish me*
*nothing to hang onto nothing I can even see but hands and eyes and more hands cold hard hands and things and surfaces but eyes are colder and harder*
*let me go let me go let me go*
*can't scream want to can't scream that sound is all there is I have a mouth but I can't scream please let me please*
*they move around like ghosts like I'm a ghost but then I'd be dead want to be dead want to be dead please let me be dead no no if I'm dead now this will never change please death please please change this change me change me to nothing nothing can hurt nothing there's nothing to hurt*
*but I already am nothing nothing to them nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing not a thing but I am a thing please stop please stop*
*why*
***
Lex didn't often have trouble finding words; usually his challenge was to pick out the most effective ones from the many that crowded his brain. But trying to find words now was like trying to pull a goldfish from a pond using only his toes. Arkin's words could mean only that somebody had found not only extraterrestrial, intelligent life, but found it here on earth.
Arkin was leading him through storage rooms which, while not actually dusty, gave that impression. Without warning, the older man turned and Lex nearly ran into him. With the automatic, "Sor-" that came from his mouth, he found he was capable of speech again.
"Does this mean that there *is* intelligent life from another planet?"
Arkin nodded silently.
"Here?"
"Here."
Lex sensed so much self-questioning behind his unmoving expression that he wasn't able to stop his own question, though as he spoke it sounded ridiculous. "It's not you, is it?" When it was out, he realized that not only was the question ridiculous, but that he'd spoken in the excited quaver of an adolescent.
Arkin smiled, fleetingly. "No." Lex wasn't sure--had the astronomer's face always had that sadness behind it, and he had just learned to recognize it, or was it new? The expression now seemed almost as organic to him as his features. "I'm going to ask you something now, Mr. President, now that you've had a chance to absorb this." A tiny, detached part of Lex's mind commented that of the two of them, the President of the United States had far less of an air of authority.
"Terrible things have been done to him, in the name of science as well as far less illustrious goals. He has been cruelly exploited, though it seems that he never wished to harm a living thing."
"He?" Arkin was so precise in his speech, the choice of pronoun couldn't be just convenience.
"He. For the first years of his life here, he not only passed as a human but was raised as one. We don't know if even the people who raised him knew of his origins. Or if he did. Then-" He raised a hand and let it drop.
"Somebody found out?"
"Somebody found out. Somebody found out and what was apparently an innocent and harmless being was thrown into a hell made especially for him." Arkin's smile was twisted with bitterness. "People are made to suffer terribly for being different. If there is one rule of history, that is it. It might have seemed to a detached observer that in a few parts of the world that was changing. But it hadn't changed enough or in time for him."
Lex could well imagine but his brain shied away from that like a whipped horse. "He was raised as human? What...what's his name?"
"That question was one of the few that wasn't too trivial for them to record. As he was sold from one to another and again to another, notes and observations were part of each sale but nobody added that."
Dehumanizing. Except the being, who perhaps thought he was human, never was. A name, so trivial and yet so vital. "What do you call him, then?"
Arkin chuckled but with only faint amusement. "Among ourselves, Al." He waited for a wince of comprehension at the feeble, sad joke. "Not having anything to call him to his face, we avoid it."
"We?"
"My sister. A practicing psychiatrist. Everything she has attempted is as ineffective as superstition. Or even more so, sometimes superstition has its own effect." He grimaced. "He was raised as human and I cannot believe that it has been ineffective because he's an alien. I think it's because the damage is so profound."
"Can'st thou minister to a mind diseased?" He wasn't even aware of having spoken until he heard the sound of his voice trailing off.
Arkin locked his eyes on Lex's. "Mr. President, I need your word that you will do him no harm." The words seemed to resonate in his ears as sonorously as organ chords. "You are a good man, Mr. President, but what he represents is great temptation. If it would be best for him--and for you as a man with a conscience--to forget this conversation, I ask you to do that. If you want to see him, you must promise that you will not harm him."
"I won't promise not to hurt him. I promise to protect him and help him in any way possible. You have my word." Arkin's eyes seemed to examine not just the words and the voice but to be weighing him for truth like the Egyptian god of justice weighed the hearts of the dead against the feather of justice. He must have been satisfied, as he turned to leave the room, but holding the door for Lex to proceed him.
Reviews inspire the Muse! Or at least her secretary...