Frank & Brian Herbert - Man of two worlds

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Man of Two Worlds
Frank Herbert
Brian Herbert
May 1986
This book is dedicated with gratitude to Hal Cook and Jeanne Ringgenberg
If every Dreen dies, the universe collapses, for all life and all matter are sustained by Dreen
idmaging.
-- The Touchfinger Tabloids, Dreenschool curriculum
Ryll felt no pain on awakening, and he did not remember the collision. His mind groped for
reality. What was the odd surface under him?
I am on a Far Voyager deck, he thought.
The surface where he lay felt slippery with viscous liquid. Something approximating gravity held
him down. His Dreen senses suggested he was caught in an erratic spin but it was more than that,
perhaps the gravitation of a planet as well, and he could not understand why he returned to
consciousness this way -- his eyes swiveled inward to darkness.
I am a Dreen.
It was a clear thought and suggested things not in immediate memory. His brain ached as badly as
from a bazeel hangover. Urgency tugged at him but he did not want to face it. Better to consider
what it meant to be Dreen.
Was it good to be Dreen?
I can idmage.
Despite this Dreen creative power, he now saw little that was graceful or pleasing in his native
flesh, an observation that struck him as peculiar.
But Dreen mind powers could create new matter (even stars with planets) and new life forms. He
could shapeshift his body into that of any other creature, changing functions and appearance
entirely.
Why then, Ryll asked himself, did Dreens look so similar -- lumpy ovoid bodies with four concealed
legs and two arms with six-fingered hands extruded only when needed?
Even Habiba, Supreme Tax Collector of Dreenor and the oldest Dreen, could not explain this
peculiarity. She said the reasons for Dreen shape and powers were lost in prehistory. Dreens,
Habiba explained, were similar to other life forms in this limited knowledge about themselves.
An intrusive buzzing and clanking sound interrupted these reflections.
Odd sounds. Patricia at work?
What a strange name for a semisentient spaceship: Patricia. That had been his first reaction.
It was not a name a Dreen spoke easily even after creating the requisite vocal system in his
malleable body.
Patricia?
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He recalled his initial shock at the ship's odd behavior.
"My name is Ryll."
He had said this in a patronizing tone, the one taught for use with Excursion Ships. The response
was unexpected:
"Don't take that tone with me!"
He remembered sitting in the control room, shocked by the ship's commanding tone. Did it suspect
he was adventuring? He thought of his intentions as adventure, not as stealing.
I was escaping Dreenor's boredom.
Ryll had been extremely tired of all the talk about his gifts and potential. What did they expect
from a son of Jongleur, the Chief Storyteller? He thought the Elders would call his taking the
ship a schoolboy prank if they caught him.
So I took the ship. And I am Dreen but far away from Dreenor.
He had no idea how he knew these things nor why it was important to reflect on being Dreen.
Why don't I think of myself as graceful?
Was it that he could completely alter his appearance but could not make piecemeal changes? A
Dreen's floppy ear covers draped like small brown blankets down each side of his body. Very
impractical, as was the large horn-tool nose that dominated his face from the widow's peak of pink
hair atop a neckless and shoulderless body to the concealed mouth that revealed itself only when
open to receive food or make noises.
He had a memory vision of fellow Dreens lifting an ear flap and asking speakers to repeat
themselves. Impracticably: small mouth, weak vocal cords, ears blanketed. By idmaging, he could
shapeshift his entire body, but tradition dictated he never do this on Dreenor. Metamorphoses
were reserved for offworld. Dreenor was a place of sanctuary and storytelling camaraderie.
Ryll wished he were back on Dreenor now to share a tale of distant travel, idmage creations and
adventure.
That's why I defied my Elders and took the ship. I was tired of the boring schoolboy life. I
wanted to be the youngest Junior Storyteller. That's why I did it. That's why I'm here on this
slippery deck.
Slippery deck?
His eyes remained swiveled inward to darkness but more details began to surface.
The ship.
Many ships sat on the mud-brown Flat of Dreenor, coming and going with their Storyteller captains.
The ships were great bulbous things with extruded sensors like waving cilia to guide them through
the Spirals of Creation in tangled space.
Sometimes, for no observable reason a ship would remain unchosen and dormant, awaiting just the
right captain. That was the way it had been with this ship. It had been part of Ryll's
environment from earliest childhood only a few months out of seedhouse.
Even before being sent to the school for gifted children he had thought of this ship as his own,
creating fantasies of himself in the Spirals.
He had wondered often about its personality. The varied personalities of Excursion Ships as
taught in school fascinated him. Ships were almost like people. But this one . . .
"You will call me Patricia!"
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Ryll's proctors had told him the most enjoyable trips into the tangles of space were on ships
having personalities compatible with your own. You chose your ship with great care.
Patricia?
Immediate sense impressions demanded attention. What was this viscous fluid under him? Why the
dullness in his body? Something was disturbingly wrong. Had Patricia malfunctioned? Impossible!
Excursion Ships were idmaged to be perfect. Then what was this erratic spinning motion holding
him to the deck?
He tried to consider the possibility of something wrong with Patricia and recalled instead the
appearance of the ship on the Dreenor Flat -- a golden egg with cilia-sensors glistening. Each
time passing the Flat he had looked to see that his ship remained unchosen by an adult.
Wait for me, beautiful ship. When I graduate you will be mine.
Once he had seen a group of adult Dreens working on the ship, all under the direction of Mugly the
Elder. They conferred, pointed and swiveled their eyes inward to idmage, making the ship even
more perfect, no doubt.
Nothing could go wrong with a perfectly idmaged ship.
Could it?
Early one morning before school he had sneaked past the sleeping monitor and boarded the ship to
take away copies of its flight-simulation manuals in their crimson displays.
He rationalized that gifted children were expected to prepare themselves for the day they would go
out as Storytellers to create new worlds. But this was secret preparation, teaching himself to
pilot an Excursion Ship, something far beyond the careful pacing of the adult-monitored
curriculum.
No one suspected he could pilot his ship, could take it without permission and vanish into the
Creative Spirals -- no matter that he was too young and had not absorbed enough cautionary
instruction.
I'll be the youngest Dreen ever to create new worlds.
He saw himself in the Elite class of Junior Storytellers, training ground for advancement to
Elder.
Idmaging!
How attractive to contemplate the supreme Dreen ability: to make tangible the living fantasies of
the mind, to create new life forms and return to Dreenor with stories of his artistic efforts.
That was why he had taken Patricia.
So why was he here on a deck with a slippery fluid under him? There was an odd smell. Vaguely
familiar. What was it?
"Patricia?" he ventured.
The ship did not reply.
Patricia had not opposed him when he took over the controls, although she called his pretensions
"an interesting dream produced by your immaturity and boredom but consistent with a Dreen's
natural idmagination."
Did Patricia self-destruct?
That was a terrifying thought and flooded his mind with Patricia's irritating voice: "You are
going to a dangerous place and the Storyteller who commands me likely will die."
By Habiba's everlasting seedglands! He suddenly remembered the awful revelations of his ship:
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"The Earther Zone Patrol holds captive Dreens. I have this information to explain why I must self-
destruct rather than permit Earthers to learn my secrets."
This was more than the bits and pieces from adult whispers about Dreen disasters.
"The creatures he made worshiped him!"
"His creatures did not evolve and just died out. Faulty precepts."
Children heard such things and created their own myths. But his present situation was no myth to
be greeted with amused tolerance by adults.
Why wasn't I told?
Patricia said children could not share real disaster tales until deemed capable of handling harsh
information.
I have encountered harsh information.
What happened to my perfect ship?
Once more he called out to Patricia but still the ship did not respond.
He thought he would even welcome one of her caustic lectures, if only she would speak. He did not
want to be alone.
Where am I?
Ryll swiveled his eyes outward and locked them into place. He saw shadows, then bursts of light
that brought pain and forced him to blink. He squinted cautiously and saw a dented silver-yellow
bulkhead directly over him -- Patricia's control room but badly damaged. Destruction but not
total.
He lay on his back and it hurt when he extruded an arm to touch the deck. Not cold . . . not hot
. . . sticky stuff.
More memories returned.
He saw his ship emerge from the Spirals, felt again the excitement of that moment and . . . and .
. . and then disaster!
Another ship occupied the emergent space!
The effect was not just a collision but a massive attempt by two large objects to occupy the same
space at the same time. His control room smashed through to the center of the other ship,
dominating the impact and telling him his was the more massive object.
When the first shudderings and boomings of the crash subsided, he heard hissings, clangings and
snappings and saw emergency repair manipulators attempting to seal his area against loss of
atmosphere. Fire! He remembered flames. That was what destroyed the sacred Dreen drive!
I am trapped here! But where is here?
He could still hear nearby sounds to suggest emergency repairs. This gave him hope. He rolled
his body slightly to the right. Pain! He was a moment fighting off the defensive-ball reaction,
every Dreen's instinctive response to danger.
Curiosity and a need to know sustained him. What were those two mounds stretched across a break
in the bulkhead? He stared at them.
Badly damaged protoplasm! Bodies from the other ship.
Ragged bits of green and black fabric hid some of the shattered flesh.
Ryll took an interminable time extruding legs to help him crawl toward the bodies. His efforts
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hinted at terrible injuries -- vital organs crushed and severed. Too much damage for idmaging
repairs, but those bodies at the broken bulkhead offered a way to survive.
Painfully, he reached the first body. He recognized the shape from Storyteller accounts: an
Earth human. The Earther was dead.
Ryll moved to the second body.
Blood . . . much blood -- some his own yellow, flowing and mingling with Earther magenta . . . and
a clear fluid spouting from a bulkhead rift.
The second human still breathed. Ryll's left front leg crunched shattered eyeglasses. Agonizing
cramps warped his flesh and the defensive-ball reaction tried to dominate him.
Can't let that happen!
This was no time to be immobilized and helpless.
The odd smell remained but he noted no more hiss of escaping atmosphere. What was that smell?
Memory from a fully assimilated Storyteller account answered his question.
The clear fluid: vol-tol!
It had been an extremely artistic Dreen story explaining vol-tol, the highly explosive fuel used
in Earthers' primitive ships.
The other ship in the collision was of Earther origin! One of its occupants lay dead and another
appeared to be dying.
But the vol-tol demanded immediate attention. It could ignite, destroying the shambles of the
collision and every living thing aboard.
Ryll knew he had to deal with the problem himself. Patricia was no longer functional.
I must move quickly!
He touched the surviving human's crushed head and neck.
Yes, dying.
Darts of agony shot through Ryll as he moved. It occurred to him that he, too, might be fatally
injured. He paused to make an internal assessment.
By the blessed left arm of the Supreme Tax Collector! Almost ten percent of my mass is gone!
This time there was no trouble with the defensive-ball reaction. His probing hands fanned into
cilia, an automatic reaction against which every Dreen child was warned. Ryll watched the cilia
slither into the dying human's face.
Merging!
He knew he must prevent this. Combining life forms created unpredictable and often dangerous
results. That was one piece of harsh information taught to every child.
But without more mass immediately I will die.
Ryll stared at an audio-visual ID tag on what remained of the mortally wounded Earther's green and
black tunic.
"I am Lutt Hanson, Jr.," it said in English.
Ryll's language-interpretive facility, a product of Dreen storytelling and education, immediately
shifted to the proper linguistic form.
What odd names Earthers chose.
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No matter the harsh warnings, survival necessity drove him. There was no time for idmaging, and
he needed portions of this dying body to rebuild his Dreen mass.
Abruptly, he heard wreckage moving. Metal grated against metal. Then . . . voices!
Discarding niceties, Ryll allowed Earther flesh to flow into and combine with his own, an oddly
pleasing sensation. He felt his Dreen resources using Earther protoplasm, letting it creep into
and around his cells. Alien memories intruded.
Fascinating! The cells carried Earther information -- too much to review at once, but similar to
assimilating a Dreen Storyteller's account.
Suddenly, a voice boomed from behind Ryll.
"All personnel evacuate this ship immediately!"
Ryll identified the characteristic sound-clipping of an artificial amplifier.
The shock of the voice and the final merging with an essential mass of Earther flesh jolted him.
I must hide!
Using Earther-cell data, Ryll assumed the appearance and clothing of Lutt Hanson, Jr. A facsimile
Earther took shape on the shattered deck, complete with clear-lensed, round-framed eyeglasses --
no need to match originals. Ryll's eyes in a new olive shade stared out of Earther-shaped flesh.
The meticulously copied face was blocky and soft: thin red-brown hair, a high forehead and a
raised blood vessel like a tiny medusa serpent on the left temple. With desperate cunning, he
appropriated a nametag from the Earther's ragged tunic and pushed discarded flesh into contact
with the dead companion.
The intrusive voices were much louder, metal slamming against metal. Once more, the amplified
voice boomed out.
"Fuel rupture! All personnel except emergency volunteers evacuate the damage area!"
Metal crashed to the deck behind Ryll. Heavy footsteps clumped to his side. An armored hand came
into view and a brown faceplate with helmet lowered close to Ryll's face.
"Hey! This one's alive!"
"Move him!"
That was the amplified voice of command.
Memories and motivations from Lutt Hanson, Jr., seeped like tendrils bleeding across nerve
contacts into Ryll's awareness. What an odd creature, this Earther. There were visions of a
wealthy family rife with disputes and intrigues -- this Lutt Junior active in many ways,
coordinating and plotting to fulfill his single, driving ambition . . .
"A dead one here!"
That was the voice of the one who had come into Ryll's view.
"Part of the body's melted away! Yeccch!"
"Leave it and bring the survivor! This place could blow any second!"
The amplified voice of command again.
Ryll felt something being slipped under his body -- a thin fabric with stiffeners. Two armored
Earthers lifted him and carried him through the hole torn in the bulkhead.
Ryll closed his eyes and experienced a deep sense of gratitude at being rescued, even though it
was by creatures produced in Dreen idmages. Survival dominated his reactions now and an immediate
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problem required attention.
Lutt Hanson, Jr., was becoming aware of the merging.
Who are you? How did you get into my mind?
It was a soundless voice but it roared in Ryll's awareness.
What are you doing to me? Get out! Get out!
Ryll formed a responsive thought, trying to make it as soothing as possible. But overtones of
panic were unavoidable.
I can't get out. That would kill both of us.
The human responded with more panic and tried to take control of their mutual body.
This is my body and I want you out of it!
Only a small part of this body is yours. Most of it is mine. I'm trying to save us both.
You're lying!
Ryll allowed a memory vision of the moments before fleshly merging to flow into common awareness.
He carefully controlled what was shared but made it appear uncensored, astonished at his sudden
ability to dissemble.
The human's response was predictable.
My God! Is that me? Oh . . . yes. The back of my head was crushed! Nobody could have survived
that. I must've been dying.
We both were dying. There was enough flesh to save us but only in one body.
Can't we separate?
There may be a way but it will take time and facilities you don't yet possess.
Who are you?
I am a Dreen Far Voyager.
That was a lie but the human could not know, could not acquire any of Ryll's memories unless Ryll
chose to share them.
What's a Dreen?
I'll explain later. What was your ship doing in my emergent space? You caused the accident.
No response from the Earther.
Ryll sensed advantage and pressed it.
Didn't you know an Excursion Ship of a Far Voyager might come out there?
The human tried to change the subject. What's this language we're using and how come I understand
it?
This is the Dreenor language. Habiba's language. When we merged, some of my language facility
became available to you.
Why do you say I caused the accident?
You entered emergent space without proper warning.
I was testing my new ship. Definitely defensive.
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Well, your companion is dead and both of our ships are total disasters. Who are these people
rescuing us?
Zone Patrol. I wasn't authorized in their perimeter and there's going to be hell to pay. It's
into the clink for sure, no matter who I am.
Ryll allowed himself a secret thought: Zone Patrol! The ones who held captive Dreens!
He assumed his most persuasive personality. I have a suggestion, Lutt. May I call you Lutt?
Sure, but what do I call you?
My name is Ryll. I suggest you take over control of our body and answer the Zone Patrol's
question. I suggest you not tell them about me.
Silence, then: Yeah. They'd think I was nuts unless . . . Say! What's our body look like?
Like you but slightly larger than before the accident. More massive.
Ryll felt the litter being lowered to a flat surface and opened his eyes. He sensed Lutt reaching
for dominance in their mutual flesh. Vision blurry -- vague movement of armored figures, a gray
bulkhead.
A faceplate came into view.
"He's coming around. Should I give him a shot?"
"Hold it. This deck will shake if that fuel blows."
As though the words created the effect, red brightness erased the shadows. There was the thumping
sound of a muffled explosion. Ryll bounced in a wash of heat.
"Jeeedarussi!" It was a voice close to his ear.
The commanding voice boomed out: "Get the fire control team in there or we'll lose the whole
thing!"
Ryll heard the movement of many armored humans but could not see them because someone without
armor bent close, blocking his view. Ryll saw a wide, heavy head with short hair. Hands probed
and tested his new body. Female by the voice and briskly professional.
"We'll 'ray him but there don't appear to be any broken bones."
"If that isn't fool luck I never heard of it. Right next to a dead one, too."
That was a masculine voice from one side.
"His lapel tag says Lutt Hanson, Jr.," the woman said.
The man spoke sharply. "Hanson? This is old L.H.'s kid! I'd better call in."
Ryll still felt the gropings of Lutt Junior trying to take over control of their body. Very
tentative and wary, like an insect crawling along his nerves. The human lacked Dreen experience
in the mental acceptance of storytelling.
There came the sound of a click and a humming buzz.
Ryll thought: My human head moves on a supple neck. He turned his head toward the sound but
could not bring the man into view. The voice was clear, though.
"Sergeant Renner here, sir. We're at the crash site. One survivor with an identity label saying
he's Lutt Hanson, Jr."
Silence, then: "No, sir. Fuel spilled and exploded. There are no other survivors."
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Ryll focused on a circular crest adorning an arm of the woman bending over him. He filled out the
shared memory with an assimilated Dreen Storyteller account.
Zone Patrol. This is the dangerous, all-encompassing United States security force -- a
unification of their previous military agencies.
Sergeant Renner spoke: "There was only one other body, sir, and we couldn't get it out."
More silence, then: "Very well, sir. Will comply."
I really messed up, Ryll thought.
He closed his eyes and began sorting through newly acquired memories.
What a jumble! Important data, though. The Earther ship employed a primitive form of Dreen
drive. We collided because the crude thing inherently homed on the signal of my incoming ship.
Stupid! Stupid!
What happened to Patricia? Is my perfect ship destroyed forever?
Why, oh why did I take that ship?
Lutt Junior assumed command of their flesh and Ryll sank into his own thoughts with a sense of
relief.
In school they had said the Dreen partner in this amalgam might have difficulty withdrawing
completely but could be dominant by choice, taking over muscle and nerve control at any time.
That was reassuring.
He felt the litter being lifted and carried somewhere.
Patricia, what is happening to you?
It had been so easy to take the ship. Too easy. The chief monitor at the Flat during Ryll's
sixteenth year out of seedhouse, an Eminence named Prosik, had shown flexions and tremblings
characteristic of bazeel addiction. Prosik had other defects, all of them adding up to sufficient
reason for his never having risen above the position of Eminence, nineteenth from the bottom of
Habiba's fifty-seven social varieties. He often slept during guard duty and even when awake
accompanied the curious child into the ship for play at being a Storyteller.
If he hadn't been asleep I never would have acquired the flight-simulation manuals.
Despite the present mess, Ryll still felt proud of the way he had taken the ship. He had raised
the impossible-to-idmage bazeel in a small experimental horticultural garden off his bedroom,
hiding the prohibited plant under broad-leaved herbs. His parents, admiring the garden, never
suspected.
Ryll had tried the bazeel once and awakened the next morning with a severe brainache and little
memory of its effect except for vague visions of extruding all four legs and falling asleep while
counting them over and over.
Periodically, Ryll presented small stems of bazeel to Prosik and, one day, gave the Eminence a
large frond of the drug "to thank you for letting me play in the beautiful ship."
Shortly after consuming the bazeel, Prosik's horn-tool extension sank into the brown mass of his
body until it lay almost buried there and the chief monitor was a comatose lump of protoplasm. He
did not stir as Ryll crept into the ship, gaze fixed on the icy yellow light shining from the
control room.
At last! He was in a Storyteller's sanctum and he possessed the knowledge to command an Excursion
Ship.
Around Ryll lay an ovoid enclosure seven times his height and so wide even his longest extensions
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could not span it. He touched the first command plate and a silver-yellow glow filled the space
with an exciting lambent radiance.
Ryll stared at the controls. This was the light that signaled life-creating forces. So I have
the necessary powers.
One could never be sure until touching that plate in the command space and this had been forbidden
to a mere child.
For a moment he felt fearful of the life patterns that might emerge from this place and he dawdled
while sealing the external hatches.
Hesitation passed. He formed the proper pseudopod, touched the proper plates in proper sequence
and exactly as the flight simulator had predicted, he found himself and the ship in the infinite
Spirals of tangled space.
Elation filled him.
I've done it!
Sensors displayed what lay outside -- the substance of creation bathed in a light very like that
within the Storyteller sanctum. Out there stood the most exciting mystery of all -- the raw
material from which Dreen idmaging produced new places and new life. He had touched the control
plate and filled his mind with awareness of the Spirals. Now . . . now he could idmage something
important!
And no other Dreen could track him. Memory and the ship systems held the coordinates to guide his
return. Dreenor was not lost to him; he was lost to Dreenor.
Ryll sat in the Storyteller harness, swinging at the focal center of command and he felt very much
the maker of a reality dream, that marvelous precursor to idmages. That was the moment the ship
chose to shock him.
"You will call me Patricia of the female gender."
Ryll jumped. Nothing in his education had prepared him for the candor and adjustment capabilities
apparent in the voice of this . . . this artifact. He had never heard of a ship initiating
conversation.
"That's interesting," he managed. "Why should I call you Po . . . Putrushua?"
"Patricia!" she corrected him. "You will call me Patricia because it is my name and we are going
to a place where that is a common appellation."
"But I want to go through the Spirals and --"
"I am ordered to one destination and cannot disobey."
"My name is Ryll and you will --"
"I observe that you are quite immature and will require careful supervision. It is difficult to
compute why you were assigned this mission. Perhaps you are expendable. That fits the rationale
of my task."
"Answer my question!"
Silence.
"Please tell my why we have only one destination."
"I am a Reserved Inspection Ship devised to erase an idmage."
Ryll's body collapsed into a hard ball, his horn tool pointed at the source of the ship's voice
above him on the plate wall. He knew this posture. Defensive reflex.
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file:///F|/KaZaA%20Lite/My%20Shared%20Folder/Frank%20Herbert%20-%20Man%2of%20Two%20Worlds.txtManofTwoWorldsFrankHerbertBrianHerbertMay1986ThisbookisdedicatedwithgratitudetoHalCookandJeanneRinggenbergIfeveryDreendies,theuniversecollapses,foralllifeandallmatteraresustainedbyDreenidmaging.--TheTouc...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：281 页 大小：695.02KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-04

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