Hosts

  They ate and talked about old times, warily avoiding the subject of Jack's activities earlier in the day. Jack had faded after dinner and headed back to bed, leaving Kate alone with her fears.

  The Unity hadn't bothered her since this afternoon. It had stayed in the background, far in the background, all day, as if preoccupied. Which was fine with Kate.

  She put the two dinner plates into a cabinet with their mates, but as she dropped the spoons and forks into their slots in the utensil drawer, her hand drifted to the side and gripped the black handle of a long, wide-bladed carving knife. She tried to pull away but her grip only tightened.

  An icy hand clutched her throat. No!

  She'd meant to say it, to wail it, but her voice remained silent.

  Her hand lifted the knife and held it before her, twisting the blade back and forth to catch the light. Her left hand stroked the sharp cutting edge, then touched the point.

  This will do.

  The Unity! Speaking to her. But how? No one else was here. She'd had to be touching them before, holding hands with their circle to hear the Voice. How—?

  And then she knew and she wanted to scream.

  Yes, Kate. You are of us now and we are of you.

  No, please, I don't want this! Please!

  You will, Kate. The closer you move toward full integration, the more you will welcome it.

  Don't I get a say?

  Integration is inevitable. Arguments are futile, a waste of time, and time is everything right now.

  With the knife held before her, Kate turned and began walking from the kitchen.

  What are you doing?

  Your brother is a threat to the future. Threats must be eliminated.

  No!

  Kate tried to stiffen her knees, dig her heels into the floor, hurl herself against the wall, but she moved relentlessly forward, turning the corner toward Jack's room.

  She made no sound, but her words were a sob in her mind. Please don't do this! Jeanette! Where are you? Stop this, I beg you!

  You are not doing this, Kate. We are all doing it. Together. As one. As we will do everything.

  But you're not murderers! You're all decent people! You can stop this! There must be some other way!

  We are one and he cannot be of us. He is not a host, and he threatens us, so he must be eliminated. He used what you told him this morning to put the One Who Was Terrence under suspicion. He is free now but the police may return. If the One Who Was Terrence is taken to jail he could be hurt, even killed, and then all our plans will have to be changed. All because of your brother. He must be stopped.

  I can stop him. I can tell him things that will make him stop.

  No. Too late. You've told him too much already. He won't trust you now.

  She was in Jack's room now, standing over his bed. He lay supine before her, legs akimbo, deep in sleep. Her hand reversed its grip on the handle and Kate watched with escalating horror as it lowered the point to the fourth intercostal space just left of the sternum.

  We're so glad you are a doctor. Your medical knowledge tells us the best place to strike.

  God in heaven, stop this!

  And then her hand was raising the knife high, and her second hand was joining and coupling with it. She felt the muscles tighten, readying a powerful two-armed thrust.

  No! Kate threw every last fragment of her crumbling will into her arms. NO!

  Sweat burst from her pores as the blade moved down an inch, then paused, suspended in a wavering hover.

  It worked. She'd stopped it.

  This is futile, Kate! You cannot overcome the inevitable.

  Really?

  Bolstered, she focused her energies more tightly on her arms. And slowly her left hand loosened its grip and fell away. And then the right hand, still clutching the knife, began to sink.

  I will not kill my brother.

  Panting, drenched in perspiration, she lowered the knife to her side.

  A stalemate, Kate. For now. Your love for your brother overpowered us, but our love for you will overcome that. It is inevitable.

  Love? Making a mannequin of me isn't love!

  Love has many forms. The One Who Was Jeanette fought like a tigress against inoculating you with her blood, but she was more completely integrated with us at that time than you are tonight, and we prevailed. And now that she is fully integrated her love wants you to be with us.

  Jeanette had fought them… like a tigress. Kate bet she did. She wanted to cry. She could imagine Jeanette kicking and clawing all the way down the hall and into her room, crying out in anguish as the pin pierced her palm. So tragic, and yet the knowledge of Jeanette's struggle warmed her.

  This is only a temporary reprieve for your brother, Kate. You are not ours yet, but by tomorrow you will be more so. And then you will not be able to resist.

  Tomorrow…

  Tomorrow she would murder her brother.

  She tried to shout, to wake Jack and warn him, but her voice was locked. She could restrain her arms from stabbing Jack but could not wrest back control of the rest of her body.

  Tomorrow…

  The word followed her as she was guided from Jack's room to return the knife to the utensil drawer.

  Tomorrow…

  Kate was walked back to the TV room where she lay down on the fold-out bed and closed her eyes, screaming without making a sound, not even a whimper.

  MONDAY

  1

  I'm going insane!

  Not at all, Kate, cooed the soft, sexless voice in her head. Quite the opposite.

  Somehow, perhaps as a way for her mind to escape the horror of her situation, Kate had fallen asleep last night. Or perhaps the Unity had made her sleep. This morning she'd been awakened by the sound of a door closing.

  For one glittering, hopeful moment, she'd cradled the possibility that last night might have been a dream, a nightmare even more horrific than participating in Fielding's murder. But then, despite her desire to sleep in, her body rose from the bed.

  Kate had screamed, a ragged wail of terror and anguish that remained trapped inside her skull as her body walked to the kitchen where she found a note from Jack.

  GONE TO MEET SOMEONE. BE BACK SOON.

  J

  Since then she'd been seated here on the edge of the fold-out bed, staring at the wall for what seemed like hours. Hours of nothing.

  Hardly 'nothing,' Kate. With each passing moment you are becoming incrementally further integrated into the Unity.

  Even her thoughts weren't her own.

  You're lying. I don't feel any different from last night.

  We don't lie. We don't have to.

  Kate had reins on the panic that had suffused her since awakening, but the sick cold horror of her plight was a throbbing undertone through her consciousness, steadily interrupted by blasts of helpless frustration.

  She had to call NIH and CDC, had to impress upon them the urgent need for a solution, had to tell them about Jack and the antibodies he undoubtedly carried.

  She tried to reach for the phone but her hand refused to obey.

  No. No calls to government health agencies. That would be counterproductive.

  All she could do was sit. She was desperate for something, anything to distract her, even for a moment.

  Can I at least read a magazine or paper or watch the news on TV?

  What for?

  How about to find out what's going on in the world?

  What is happening out there does not matter.

  Keep on thinking that way. I like it. Because that world out there is going to bring you down.

  We think not. The history of "that world out there" begins a new chapter tonight.

  Tonight? The utter confidence resonating through the voice troubled her. What happens tonight?

  Something wonderful. We had to wait for The One Who was Jeanette to be fully integrated, and then for the bonds of unity to mature. Tonight, finally, it will be possible.

  But
what?

  You are not yet ready to know. When you are further integrated you will understand.

  Another of your inevitabilities?

  Yes! The Great Leap that will make the Great Inevitability possible.

  Kate didn't like the sound of that. Tell me.

  When you are ready. Right now you will watch as we remove a threat to the Great Inevitability.

  Oh, no. Did they mean Jack?

  Yes. Your brother. We must do what you would not.

  No! Please!

  Watch.

  Jack's TV room slowly faded from view…

  … and Kate is walking along a New York street. She's crossing an avenue; somehow she knows it's Amsterdam. And then with a start she recognizes Jack walking three-quarters of a block ahead. She's behind him; the sun is locked above the rain-laden clouds, but she knows he's heading west.

  Jack stops at a corner and swivels, looking around. As he turns toward Kate she makes a quick turn to the right, stepping between two cars and crossing the street, keeping her face averted from Jack as she moves. Only this isn't Kate's body; the arm that swings into view isn't hers—too scrawny, too old looking.

  Kate gasps because suddenly she's watching Jack again, but from a greater distance and an entirely different angle—looking at his back. Somehow she's shifted almost 180 degrees, and a distance of two blocks, instantaneously.

  Then with a shock she realizes what's happened. The Unity is following Jack and has shifted its viewpoint from one member to another. She's in a man's body now—can tell from the hairy wrist protruding from the jacket sleeve before her—and watching through the side window of a double-parked car as Jack turns her way and continues his trek.

  No! Leave him alone!

  We cannot. He is even more of a threat than Dr. Fielding. We regretted killing the doctor; he, at least, was a potential host. Not so your brother. There is no place for him in our future.

  Viral ethics… anyone who won't help increase their numbers is disposable.

  Please. I beg you.

  We need peace for the Great Leap. To achieve it we need time for the eight of us to be together, isolated, undisturbed. Your brother is bent on disrupting us, fragmenting us. We cannot allow that.

  She has to stop this!

  Frantic, Kate tries to rise to her feet but her legs won't respond. She has to warn Jack, but even if she can reach the phone, how will she contact him? She's seen a cell phone and beeper on his dresser during her stay, but she doesn't know the numbers.

  As the Unity—the perfect surveillance machine, each component in constant contact with all others, covering all possible routes—ranges around Jack in cars and on foot, Kate screams her frustration and bangs intangible fists against the walls of her flesh prison, all to no avail. She is a ghost in her own machine.

  2

  Beth, looking great in an exercise bra and running shorts, put down the special Monday edition of The Light after reading Sandy's story, her expression puzzled.

  "I thought you told me there was a murder cult involved."

  "Legal wouldn't let me use it. They said hearsay from a single source was not enough. Too far out on a limb. We'd be just asking to be sued. Damn!"

  "It's still a good story."

  "Yeah, but no staying power. Without the cult hook it's just another murder. I need some way to pump this into something that matters."

  Beth looked at him. "Doesn't the death of a medical researcher who was trying to make the world a better place matter enough?"

  "Well, it matters, yeah, but—"

  "I'm sure it matters to his wife and son."

  "Ex-wife."

  Beth shrugged. "Still… something like that shouldn't happen to anyone. But when it's someone who was trying to find a cure for cancer, it seems doubly tragic."

  She was right, as usual. Maybe that was the angle he'd have to play for now—until he could substantiate cult activity.

  But even without that angle, this issue was special because it also ran his advocacy piece continuing the amnesty call for the Savior. Both in the first three pages. Which had led Pokorny to quip that soon Palmer would be writing the entire paper.

  Sandy finished his coffee while Beth went back to work on the treatment for her film. He leaned over and kissed her.

  "Got to go. Meeting somebody at nine, then the DA later on. I'll catch you later."

  A short, shoulder-to-shoulder ride on the crowded Nine, followed by a quick walk, and he was back in Riverside Park. He and the Savior had arranged to meet at nine this morning to follow up, but the Savior had set the spot ten blocks uptown from their previous encounters.

  He'd also told him to make sure he wasn't followed. That was an unsettling thought, but Sandy kept an eye out and couldn't find a hint that anyone was tailing him.

  With rain threatening, the park was almost deserted. Sandy had his pick of empty benches. He chose one under a tree—in case it started to rain—and sat down. The Savior appeared a few minutes later, and sat on the far end of the bench.

  "You look better," Sandy said. He still lacked the vitality of the man he'd first encountered here, but at least he didn't look like death warmed over. "That poison must be working its way out of your system."

  "What?" the Savior said. He twisted his body back and forth, doing a full scan of the park. "Oh, yeah. I'm up to maybe seventy-five percent." He slumped back and rubbed his temples as if he had a headache.

  "Holdstock walked," Sandy said. "Despite the handprint."

  The Savior shrugged. "Figured that would happen. His cult buddies alibied him, right?"

  "Right." He explained his dilemma about not being allowed to use the cult angle. "I mentioned that Terrence Holdstock was questioned, then released, but couldn't go beyond that."

  The Savior said, "You've got to. There's a big story there."

  "Yeah but I can't squeeze more ink out of it without an angle."

  "Fielding was strangled. Can you imagine what that's like? Eyes bugging out, head feeling like it's going to explode. Nasty way to go. I think hunting his killer should be angle enough."

  Sandy had to smile. "Do you know my girlfriend?"

  "Should I?" he said, doing another body-twisting scan.

  "Something wrong?

  "You sure you weren't followed?"

  "Absolutely." Well, not absolutely, but he was reasonably sure. "Why?"

  "Got this watched feeling."

  "Yeah?" Sandy glanced around. He saw a few people strolling above on Riverside Drive, but none of them appeared particularly interested in what was going on down here. "I don't."

  "Had it since I left home, but I haven't been able to spot anybody. Maybe it's because I'm still not feeling right."

  Or maybe you're scared, Sandy thought. I'd sure as hell be if I'd been poisoned.

  "Worried they'll make another try on you?"

  "The thought has crossed my mind."

  Sandy wondered if hanging around this guy might be hazardous to his health. He glanced at his watch and rose.

  "I've got a meeting with the DA about you."

  The Savior's eyes widened. "Me?"

  "Sure. Your amnesty."

  "Forget that. Holdstock and his cult are the real story. You can bring in a murderer."

  "And I can bring in a hero, too, if I can get you amnesty."

  The Savior shook his head. "Holdstock. Not me. Holdstock."

  "Don't worry. I'm on him right after I write up my DA tête-à-tête."

  Sandy waved and strolled away, leaving the Savior on the bench, rubbing his temples again.

  He started thinking about his meeting with the DA. First off, just being able to book such a meeting was a jaw dropper; he'd called at eight and they'd penciled him in for 11:30. A week ago he'd still be waiting for the call-back that would never come. Sandy expected no promise of amnesty, but no outright refusal either. A carefully clipped hedge. Fine. That would be a battle call Sandy could use to rally the troops and circle the wagons around the Sa
vior.

  While simultaneously trying to expose a murder cult.

  It ain't easy being me.

  He was going to need some fancy footwork to keep all these balls in the air, but he was up to it.

  3

  And now Kate, in a middle-aged woman's body, is moving down a grassy slope toward Jack. The younger man he was talking to has moved away, and that seems to have set the woman in motion. Jack's back is to her as he slouches on the bench.

  Turn around! she screams.

  But no cry is heard as she moves silently forward.

  A dozen feet from Jack and picking up speed, the woman's right hand pulls a long, slim knife from her pocketbook.

  Get up, Jack! Move! Get up and go! Anything but sit there!

  But to her horror Kate senses another part of her urging the woman on, glorying in the imminent demise of a threat to the Unity.

  No! That's not me! It can't be! I won't let it be!

  The woman holds the blade low, pointed toward the left side of Jack's mid-dorsal region, ready to slip between the wooden slats of the bench and the bony slats of his ribs and into the posterior wall of his heart. She's almost to him now, the arm swinging back, preparing to thrust—

  Jackieeeeee!

  "Look out!"

  A cry from somewhere behind, a man's voice, faint, distant, but enough to alert Jack. He leaps up from the bench and whirls just as the woman strikes, but her thrust stabs only air, and her momentum carries her forward, bending her over the back of the bench as Jack's foot lashes out, catching her under the chin.

  A deafening crunch! and a blaze of pain in her throat and then Kate is unable to breathe. It's as if someone has clamped a vise on her trachea—no air moves either way. She sees Jack moving away as an impossible pressure builds in her chest and black and purple splotches swell and coalesce in her vision, and then she's falling backward and she wants to call out to Jack because she is dying… dying…