A Creed for the Third Millennium Page 33

  Naturally he had assented immediately to the concept of the March of the Millennium when Harold Magnus brought it to him, but as time went on and the March grew more irrevocable, he became more and more frightened of it, and wished with ever-increasing frequency that he had not given his consent. When, just after May arrived, Harold Magnus twitted him about his jitters, he grew snappy and defensive; he had been informed of Dr Christian's refusal to be protected. He demanded more and more proof from Environment, the Army, the National Guard — and anyone else he could find — to the effect that every contingency was planned for and covered in quintuplicate. Only the piles of evidence deposited before him stiffened his original resolve. Yet still his presentiment of disaster persisted, now focused on Dr Christian's vulnerability, because this was the one contingency beyond control.

  So on this commencement day he fretted and he fretted. More positive behaviour was utterly denied him, for the March of the Millennium, Dr Christian's fame, and the amazing success of the Christian philosophy abroad, all conspired against his acting positively. For the first time since the Delhi Treaty the leaders of the world were gathering in Washington, for the first time since the Delhi Treaty it seemed as if real amity might be achieved between the United States of America and the other major powers. So much was riding on the broad thin shoulders of the man his video monitor showed him striding along with credible swiftness, mile after mile, hour after hour, a perfect target for an assassin. And he knew if Dr Joshua Christian came crashing down with his blood flying that America would receive a blow more crippling than Delhi. For her own people and the people of the world would point once more to the senseless destructive anarchistic element that dogged her and flawed her. Oh, too much to pin on too little!

  He had denied everyone access to him since dawn, sitting with Harold Magnus for company, chafing and starting up in a panic whenever it seemed to him that the panning cameras might have focused on a possible nucleus of trouble. He had chosen Harold Magnus for sole companion because if anything did go wrong, he had someone on hand at whom he could lash out with complete justification.

  It awed him. It terrified him. It made him understand for the first time what the reality of abstract millions was actually about. There they were in the flesh, genuine millions, his faceless masters and his responsibility. There they were, five million little blobs of heads spewing across the face of a New Jersey countryside without end, and every one of these blobs housed a brain that had voted for him or against him. How had he ever dared to presume to govern them? How had his predecessors ever dared? How had he ever been deluded into thinking he could control something so astronomical? How could he ever again nerve himself to act? He just wanted to run away and bury his own blob of a head where no one would ever find it. Who was Joshua Christian? Why had he come out of a nameless obscurity to this utter dominion? What right did a computer have to determine living fates? Could the man on the boardwalk truly be so selfless he didn't understand the awesome possibilities that ocean of flesh was offering him? I am afraid, I am so afraid! What have I done?

  Harold Magnus was aware of the doubts tormenting Tibor Reece, but he experienced none of them for himself. He purred. What a sight! What a fucking miracle! What a triumph for himself, to orchestrate a happening of this magnitude! Oh, what a thing to do! Nothing disastrous was going to happen, he was sublimely confident of that. And he swallowed all of it greedily, the visual offering that came in on the monitors from New York, plus the nine other marches going on across the country, shorter versions of the March of the Millennium designed to finish in a day or two at most — Fort Lauderdale to Miami, Gary to Chicago, Fort Worth to Dallas, Long Beach to Los Angeles, Macon to Atlanta, Galveston to Houston, San Jose to San Francisco, Puebla to Mexico City, and Monterrey to Laredo. He gorged himself on the sight of all those millions of walking people, he gobbled up dreams and hopes and aspirations, he frolicked and basked and gambolled, a lone whale soaking in the richest sea of human plankton soup ever made. Oh, what a clever boy am I!

  Moshe Chasen watched at home with his wife Sylvia, and his emotions were much closer to those roiling inside Tibor Reece than to the careless rapture of Harold Magnus.

  'Someone's going to get him,' he muttered, the moment he saw Dr Christian climb onto his high walkway and begin his march down I-95.

  'You're right,' said Sylvia, no comfort.

  He rolled his eyes towards her in anguish. 'You were not supposed to agree with me!'

  'So I'm your wife, so I argue a little! But when you are right, Moshe, I agree with you. Maybe it just goes to show how seldom you are right.'

  'Swallow your tongue, woman!' He clutched his head in his arms and rocked it. 'Oi, oi, what have I done?'

  'You done?' Sylvia took her eyes away from the television screen to look at him. 'What's with this you done, Moshe?'

  'I have sent him to his death, that's what I've done.'

  Her first impulse was to deride this statement; then she decided on a different tack. 'Come on, come on, you look as happy as Benny in search of a home! He will be fine, Moshe.'

  But Dr Chasen was beyond cheering up.

  Darkness had fallen an hour before Dr Christian finally came down off his walkway and parted the cheering crowds all around him. He had walked for over twelve hours without letup, no break for food, no pause to relieve himself; he had even waved the offered drinks away. Not good, thought Dr Judith Carriol, waiting in the walled-off compound of tents in which he and his family and the walking dignitaries were to stay for the night. He has become a complete fanatic, with the superhuman strength and endurance of such men, the indifference to his own bodily welfare. He will burn himself out very soon. But not before he makes it to Washington. Such men never burn out untimely.

  What security measures were possible and feasible had been implemented to protect him, of course; above his head hovered several helicopters that were not in any way connected with the media, though they purported to be. They were there scanning the crowds ceaselessly, ever alert for the flash of a gun barrel or the trajectory of a missile. The boardwalk was actually some protection, in spite of its nakedness, for it was well elevated and it kept him remote. Anyone intent on killing him would, if in the crowd, have to lift his weapon up and thus display it to those around him, and if removed from the crowd, would have to be several floors high in a building. Not one such place had been left unscoured if it was within accurate shooting range of the highway.

  When Dr Christian came into the big tent allocated to him and his family, Dr Carriol came forward at once to help him out of his parka. He looked totally exhausted, as well he might. When she suggested he visit the toilet, he nodded and disappeared in the direction she indicated, but was back again within a minute.

  'We've set up whirlpool baths for all of you,' she announced in general. 'Nothing better to iron out the kinks.'

  'Oh, Judith, it was wonderful!' said Andrew, cheeks pink from the breezy day.

  'I'm bushed, but I'm so happy I could cry,' said James, flopping into a chair.

  None of them had walked with the single-mindedness of Dr Christian; he and he alone had gone without food or drink, rest or respite. Every two hours the official marchers had been whisked from the highway to enjoy an hour's break, then were transported to a point ahead of the March so they could rejoin it when Dr Christian arrived.

  'Here, boys, let me get you a drink,' said Mama from behind laden tables.

  But once he returned from the toilet Dr Christian simply stood without moving or speaking, staring in front of him as if nothing he saw had substance, or needed substance.

  Mama had begun to notice this peculiar behaviour and was preparing to make a fuss, so Dr Carriol got in first. She walked across to him and took him gently by the arm.

  'Joshua, come and have a bath,' she said.

  He followed her to one of the rooms tacked onto the end of the tent, wherein whirlpool tubs had been placed. But once inside the especially big cubicle reserved sole
ly for his use, again he stood without moving.

  'Would you like me to help you?' she asked, a sudden alarm knocking at her ribs.

  He didn't seem to hear her.

  Silently she stripped off his clothes, while he stood docilely still and unprotesting.

  What she saw when he was naked sucked everything out of her but the pain that came squealing to fill the vacuum up.

  'Joshua, does anyone know?' she summoned up the strength to ask, her faintness dissipating.

  At last he did seem to hear; he shivered, shook his head.

  She inspected him minutely, incredulously. His feet were enormously swollen, the toes partially eaten away from frostbite. All up the front of his shins a network of deep cracks oozed redly. The insides of his thighs were bloody meat, every hair rubbed away along with the skin. Both armpits were abscessed, so were his groin and perineum and buttocks. And he was smothered with bruises, old bruises and new bruises and bruises halfway between.

  'My God, man, how have you kept going?' she cried, to fuel her self-defensive anger. 'Why haven't you asked for help, in God's name? You're quick enough to give it!'

  'I don't honestly feel anything,' he said.

  'Well, it's the end. You can't walk tomorrow.'

  'I can walk. I will walk.'

  'Sorry, no way.'

  And he rounded on her, took her between his hands and cracked her viciously against the wooden side of the tub seething with vile bubbles like an acid bath in a horror movie. And as he spoke to her with his face thrust into hers, he cracked her again and again into the side of the tub.

  'Don't you presume to tell me what I can do and what I can't do! I will walk! I will walk because I must walk! And you will say nothing. Not one word to anyone!'

  'It's got to stop, Joshua. And if you won't stop it, then I must,' she gasped, unable to break free of him.

  'It will stop only when I say so. I walk tomorrow, Judith. I walk the day after tomorrow. I walk all the way to Washington to keep my appointment with my friend Tibor Reece.'

  You'll be dead long before you get there!'

  'I'll last the distance.'

  'Then at least let me get you a doctor!'

  'No!'

  She moved angrily within his hold, twisting and beating at him with her hands. 'I insist!' she cried.

  He laughed. 'The time has long passed when you could control me! Do you honestly think you do still control me? You don't! You haven't since Kansas City. From the moment I began to walk among my people I have listened only to God, and only done God's work.'

  She gazed up into his face in dawning fear and sudden understanding. He really was mad. Perhaps he had always been mad, just hidden it better than anyone she had ever met. 'You must stop this, Joshua. You need help.'

  'I'm not mad, Judith,' he said gently. 'I see no visions, I have no communications with unearthly powers. I am more in contact with reality by far than you. You are a hard, ambitious, driving woman, and you have used me to further your own ends. Do you think I don't know that?' He laughed again. 'Well, I have turned the tables on you, madam. I am going to use you to further my ends! Your power trip is over, so is the subtle manipulation. You will do as you are told, you will obey me. If you don't, I'll destroy you. I can! And I will! It's no concern of mine if you don't understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I have found my life's work, I understand how to do that work, and you are my assistant. So no doctor! No word to anyone.'

  The eyes of a madman. He was mad! What could he do to her? How could he destroy her? And then she thought, Why am I bothering to defy him? If he wants to kill himself on this march, then let him do so. He'll make it to Washington, he's mad enough and single-minded enough. That's all he has to do to serve my ends! I was going to phase him out anyway. And maybe I'm over-reacting to the sight of all that — that — insane self-flagellation. The heart and the guts and the gizzard inside are fine, it's only the outside of him and the tips of him that are maimed. He'll live, after a period in the hospital. I was shocked. I was thrown out of myself by the sight of what he has the power to do to himself. It's not the extent of the injuries, it's the horror any sane person must experience at sight of what a madman can do to himself in the name of a purpose, or his God, or any other obsession. He wants to walk to Washington? Let him walk to Washington! It is very much to my advantage that he does. So why am I defying him? If not to achieve this cosmic undertaking, why did I consent to exile from my home and my real work for months? He is wrong! Still I — use —him.

  'All right, Joshua, if that's the way you want it, that's the way it will be,' she said. 'But at least let me do something for you. Let me find some ointment to ease the pain, okay?'

  He let her go immediately, as if he knew full well the nature of the debate she had just had with herself, as if he had been sure all along that she would keep his secret. 'Go and get it, if you must,' he said.

  So she helped him up the little flight of steps and over the side of the tub, into the roaring bubbles. Truly he did not seem to be in pain, for he sank down into the below-blood-heat isotonic solution of bone-healing salts with a sigh of what sounded like genuine pleasure, and no agony crossed his face.

  When she emerged from the cubicle his family turned to her quickly; for a sick moment she thought they must have heard what passed between her and Joshua. Then she realized that the sound of the air being forced through the water in the tub must definitely have drowned out any words they said, for the family's faces held only concern, normal concern.

  'He's soaking,' she said lightly. 'Why don't the rest of you follow suit? I just have to slip out for a moment. Mama, I've found something of real value you can do for Joshua.'

  'What? What?' Mama asked eagerly, poor thing relegated to cipher maternity.

  'If I manage to get hold of some silk pyjamas, do you think you could stitch the pants inside the trousers he'll wear tomorrow? He's a bit chafed, and luckily I don't think it's cold enough for thermal underwear. The polar outer gear is probably too much too, but it's comfortable and lightweight, and with some silk for lining he should do better.'

  'Oh, poor Joshua! I'll rub some cream into his skin.'

  'No, I'm afraid he's not really in a mood to be ministered to, Mama. We're going to have to be sneaky, like the silk pants. I'll be back as soon as I can.' And she slung her good roomy bag over her shoulder before she left the tent.

  A Major Withers was in permanent charge of the nightly rest camp. Dr Carriol had already been introduced to him in New York, so he knew she was in effect his commanding officer on this exercise. She had deemed him a particularly wooden-headed stickler for duty and detail, but when she asked him to find her as many pairs of pure fine silk pyjamas as he could, one pair at least tonight, he didn't flinch. He simply nodded, and disappeared.

  In the hospital tent she asked curtly for supplies to treat chafing and boils, not daring to go into detail; she was given powders and ointments, stuffed them into her bag along with dressings, and returned to Dr Christian in the bath.

  He was not in pain. That had finished at the moment in which he was garlanded in flowers, a sign of such love and such faith that he knew himself vindicated. They had come in their millions to be with him on his last walk, and he would not disappoint them. Not if it cost him his health, his last sane action. Judith had never really believed in him, only in herself, but they believed in him. And he had never done anything for her; it had all been for them. The walking was easy, once the flowers drugged his pain. After the kind of conditions he had endured through the winter, pulling his feet in and out of deep fresh snow, treading across rough razoring ice, the March of the Millennium was more a waltz. Especially once he ascended the special walkway they had built for him; all he had to do from then on was open his legs wide in front and behind, and keep those legs moving steadily down the soft, never-ending, level path which stretched away in front of him. Which was narcotic in itself, so steady, so changeless, so unfraught with footfall perils. He ate up
the miles, he felt on that first day as if he could have walked forever. And the people had followed, freed, happy.

  The effect seeing his body would have on Judith Carriol had not entered his mind, for he was indifferent to it himself, and the pain was gone. Nor did he ever bother to look at himself in a mirror, so actually he had no real idea how horrifying his appearance was.

  Aaaaah! Not to worry. She had come to heel as he had known she would, once he refreshed her memory about how much to her advantage it would be to let him finish the March. He leaned his head back against the side of the tub and relaxed deeply. Lovely! So peaceful to be lapped by something churning even more violently than he himself.

  At first Dr Carriol thought he must have died, for his head was back at such an angle he was surely not using his windpipe to breathe. She made a noise of alarm so loud it penetrated the roiling bubbles; he lifted his head, opened his eyes and looked at her dimly.

  'Come on, I'll help you out.'

  To touch him with a towel would certainly exacerbate his injuries, so she stood him to dry in the warm and well-ventilated room, fairly free of steam because the water in the tub was barely warm. Afterwards she laid him on a stretcher covered with several thicknesses of cotton sheeting. Originally she had arranged for a masseuse, out of the question now, of course. Still, the stretcher was useful. It seemed better not to tamper with the healing effect of the salty bath and the subsequent dryness, so she left his chafing and cracking and frostbite alone, contenting herself with smearing a combined steroid and antibiotic ointment over his — abscesses? carbuncles? They weren't boils, for each was enormous in size and many-headed.

  'Stay there,' she ordered. 'I'll bring you some soup.'

  Mama was busy sewing when she emerged into the main room of the tent, but the others had all vanished, presumably to bathe or nap before dinner.