Soft come the dragons

YOUR NEATLY BUILT THEORY. HE IS ANOTHER VIRGIN BIRTH. YOU REALIZE THAT HE HAS BUILT THE SAME SECOND COMING THEORY TO EXPLAIN HIS OWN LIFE PURPOSE. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SINCE HE HAS MET YOU, HIS LIFE PURPOSE HAS BEEN SHATTERED AND HE IS HUNTING FOR ANOTHER ANSWER. YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT. YOU DON'T WANT TO HUNT.
    THE WOMAN, MELINDA, IS ALSO A THREAT TO YOUR PURPOSE (OR RATHER THE FANTASY PURPOSE YOU HAVE CREATED FOR YOURSELF). CHRIST COULD NOT FALL PHYSICALLY IN LOVE WITH A WOMAN. BUT YOU HAVE. ADMIT IT. THIS IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE. LISTEN AND KNOW THAT YOUR PURPOSE IS TO LOVE AND COMFORT—AND BE LOVED.
    Could that be a purpose?
    IT IS THE OLDEST PURPOSE. WASH YOURSELF CLEAN OF FALSE PURPOSES. THE REASON YOU LIVE IS TO LOVE. DON'T SEARCH FOR LARGER MEANINGS, FOR THE WHY OF THE WORLD OR THE REASON IN HATE AND WAR. BE SATISFIED THAT YOU NOW KNOW YOURSELF. IT IS A WISE MAN WHO KNOWS HIMSELF.
     
     

VI
     
    I slept well, waking refreshed at about ten o'clock. My insides felt warm and free—as if a large, cold chunk of frozen emotions had been melted within. It was freedom for the first time in a lifetime. The machine was much more than the name Mechanical Psychiatrist implied. It was David with his harp, talking of dreams.
    I went to AC only for money this time, not to demonstrate my superhumanness, my wild talents. With a few more paychecks in my pocket, my Melinda and I could be vagabonds for an eternity—escaping the ugliness, the filth.
    I parachuted from the hex room down into the labyrinth, not trusting to stairs that might have been there yesterday and not today . . .
    There was a clacking of hooves on rock.
    There was an outline like a child's scrawl, not so definite, not so real as the day before.
    An indefinite form with a vague odor of musk and all textures of dark hair that fell like night mists.
    "Get out!"
    I mean you no harm at all.
    "And I wish not to harm you. Get out."
    Yesterday I fashioned a mighty sword from the very air itself. Do not forget that.
    "I beg of you to leave. You are in danger."
    From what?
    "I cannot say. It is in the knowing that the danger lies."
    I swung the sword, and he dissipated into an eerie blue vapor that clung to the walls until the wind whistled in to blow it away.
    Two hours into the session, as I was sprawled on the dirt shelf above the pit, grasping at thoughts and diverting, them toward the waterspout, a "G" drifted out, and with another level of my mind, I grasped at it and traced it. G to Grass . . . which is dark Green and bendinG over the hills . . . toppinG the hills to see GGGGG ... G ... G ... God God God God God God God like a whirlwind moan-inG and babblinG over the Glens, cominG, cominG, twistinG relentlessly onward toward me . . . G ... G ...
    I reached out to take a stronger hold on the thought plunging me downward toward the flaming pit below.
    Wind lifted me toward the river.
    I flew as if I were a kite.
    The river swept me toward the ocean.
    The water there was choppy and hot, and at places steam rose in spirals like smoke snakes.
    At places, ice floated, dying.
    I fought for the surface, trying to stay on top of the current, giving up thought direction, fighting only, fighting desperately for my own mind. Then I was suddenly up and splashing through the pillar of water that roared into the black, heavy sky; like a bullet out of a rifle, was I. Splashing, spinning, sputtering, I showered out of the mind of Child.
    The room was dark. The hex signs glowed on the walls, partially illuminating the serious faces set in strange grimaces.
    "He threw me out," I said in the quiet.
    Everyone turned to stare at me.
    "He just threw me out of his mind."

VII
     
    Rumors of war.
    The Chinese had slaughtered the skeleton staff manning the last two embassies in Asia. Pictures smuggled out showed headless bodies.
    Headless bodies on the Tri-D screen.
    The Pentagon announced the discovery of the Bensor Beam, which shorted out all synapses in the human body, leaving the brain imprisoned in a mindless hulk. Named after Dr. Harold Bensor, the beam was already being referred to (by Pentagon officials) as "the turning point in the cold war." I knew the idea had come from Child; I recognized it—the way one recognizes a bad dream that is made into a movie. But the censors had learned from mistakes they had made with me; the public would never hear of Child.
    I wondered for a moment what kind of man this Bensor could be to want his name attached to such a