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I shall begin by quoting the exact words from my file notes made on the day of Adama's most violent outburst.
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Adama is become blind. He reminds me of the man who arrived here last yahrens. He is passive yet aware. A shellmouth would be more interesting. He has not spoken to either Serpentine nor myself since his last waking up.
I have tried the hypnotic words but they do not work anymore. Serpentine will have to set more words in his psyche but given his present state, that may take time.
Serpentine lets him wander. That surprises me, for to my non-medical but pondering mind, he seems in a state of mute distress. I think that now more than ever he may try to do himself harm. I have expressed my fears to Serpentine and she agrees. But she reasons as follows: Adama is healthy in body. Ila and I have brought him self-awareness. If he wishes to cure himself, there is now nothing any of us can do. It must be up to Adama. "Of what avail," she says in her quaint way, "would it be to keep the healthy animal in a state of coma?" And I suppose I agree. But it is not easy to watch. We have come so far. We are so close. What ails him?
I realize that I have the rationalist's, perhaps the historian's, desire to find causes and effects, shapes and sizes. But life is not like that, you humans. I realize that tragedy is a human invention, to give shape to your experience; meaning to your chaos. Beyond tragedy there is just the incandescent present, illuminating everything, or the vacancy of death. If I were you I would think that Adama is a lesson in tragic waste. But no matter.
Spring has come to the garden. Wherever you turn there is blossom. The dartwings are already nesting in the eaves of the life station and are very noisy. I have seen lizards sunning themselves on the stonework and slowly waking up. Round the Pectanile there is a veritable carpet of flowers. Yesterday the smell of the sea was very strong in the garden.
Adama wanders around like a dead man. I doubt that there will be any more joy from him today than yesterday.
For this afternoon I shall take a chance and depart the carpet of flowers. Yesterday the smell of the sea was very strong in the garden.
Adama wanders around like a dead man. I doubt that there will be any more joy from him today than yesterday.
For this afternoon I shall take a chance and depart the Jadriel Garden and visit Cain. I want to bring him up to date on what is happening. Though he still rails against Adama I have managed to show him that man is largely innocent of wrongdoing. While somewhat premature, my finding as that the Magestri who appointed him must look to their own procedures.
And yet---there is more.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnmU21Z2VS
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Thus ends my file note. Now let me tell you what happened on that special day.
At quarter-past-four in the afternoon, as I was taking dictation, I received a call from Serpentine asking me to come back to the garden quickly. Cain drained his ambrosa glass hurriedly and sent me on my way.
I swung out wide over the sea as I dived down to the garden. Serpentine was calling all the time and I was able to pinpoint her position. I dived down through the trees some two hundred maxims from the Pectanile and followed the river and came to the place where the formal garden merges into the wild Callrine wood. There the river passes over rapids. There are deep hollows and places where the trees, willow and gosstang, hang over and trail in the stream. It was to this place that Adama had come.
Serpentine was in the river. She was half-submerged in the tumbling water. She was in no danger. Serpentine could charge about submerged if she had to.
She spoke to me as I descended. "Adama says he'll n'er move, till th'art here." And only then, as I moved slowly between the banks and under the branches did I see him.
He was perched on a rock. He was naked. And yet I barely recognized him. He was daubed like a savage.
Let me tell it to you in a roundabout way.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQfl8hIuJfx
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He was streaming with blood. He had a knife. He had sliced his forehead and cheeks. He had cut down the lines of his shoulder muscles and along the backs of his arms. He had cut down his chest and then outward following the lines of the ribs. He had savaged his back into ugly wounds. He had cut his thighs and calves and the tops of his feet. But there is more.
Perched on the rock and crouching, he defecated into his hands. Then he began rubbing his feces into his wounds. He was smearing himself. He mixed shit with blood.
He saw me, yet did not see me. He looked through me but yet he spoke. "O' Vulpa," he howled. "Damn you. Damn you and Ila. Damn all of you."
I secretly asked Serpentine why she had not stunned him.
"He has cut out the cache. Now if I try to reach him he will run away. You must speak to him."
There was nothing I could say. Nothing I could do but watch. What words can be used before such self-abuse? I waited.
He sat crouched for a long time staring. He was hunched down on the flats of his feet, his arms thrust forward and resting on his knees as if waiting for pain or punishment.
Of course nothing happened. The river babbled. Birds sang. Branches creaked. Shadows moved. All about us life and time continued. Serpentine and I watched and waited. What did he expect?
Eventually he stood. The blood had dried and clotted and was indistinguishable from the excrement. He turned and jumped down from the rock on the other side of the stream away from Serpentine. He broke through the screen of bushes and turned to the left and started to run. I rose and followed him.
He was making his way toward the main gate. He broke through a fence and jumped over a small tributary of the main river. He stumbled and fell there and for a moment was on his knees in the mud: but then he climbed up the bank and ran on. He crossed a small vegetable patch that was in the care of the gate warden and came to the carved screen that marked the entry into the garden.
He paused here, his arms resting against the screen and his head on his arms. The gate warden came out of his hut, saw him and immediately departed inside again. Adama lifted and ran on. He went around the screen and through the gate and came to the statue of Dionysos. He sheltered his face from the statue and ran past it and up the hill and turned right. He came to the arcade where he had lived with Ila and there he paused.
There were many people about and they stared at this naked madman and moved away from him. He must have smelled, too. People saw me trailing him and no one interfered.
Adama ran back down the arcade and turned up the path he'd followed so many sectars ago, the path that led up to Cain's little house at the height of the Monastery. He was weakening and staggered. I was shocked he lasted so long. Sometimes he stopped and gasped and then plunged on, driving himself up the steep hill. He approached the headland and the balcony called Temptation.
Many of the War Children had gathered there and now stood banging their stones, blocking the way. How had they known to gather? There were several junior members of the Benevolent Order and the Bursar. I was also surprised to see Cain. He must have decided to set out for an exercise walk. It was little more than a centon since I had left him. Maybe he was hurrying down to the Jadriel Garden having gathered that something was amiss.
Everyone drew back as Adama approached.
Adama saw Cain and with a despairing cry ran toward the narrow rail which guarded the edge of the path and threw himself over. He vanished downward immediately. Everyone clustered to the rail but I flew high and then I swooped. I dropped faster than a stone and when Adama hit the water in a tangle of arms and legs, I was there to support him when he bobbed, open mouthed and gasping, to the surface.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFxZILRr4U1
I couldn't lift him but I could support him. Within mili-centons a Callrine boat rounded the headland and came skimming toward us. Adama was dragged aboard and lay gasping in the swill of brine and sand and shells at the bottom of the boat.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡabsOdSFAyn
The seamen lost no time. They pulled on the oars and the boat turned and quickly carried him to the wharf near the entry to the Jadriel Garden.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNLfA3rSIue
Serpentine was waiting. She took him, cold and weary and bleeding from his cuts, into her iron womb and trundled back to the garden under the watchful eye of Dionysos. She didn't make the traditional pause.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡas4u7WfW2V
Let me make this clear. Adama was conscious during all of this. He stared at me as I held him above the waves. He stared at the thick-fingered Callrines who hoisted him from the sea. He stared at the War Children who had come running down to see him landed at the wharf. He stared at Serpentine as she received him and he stared at the statue of St. Dionysos as he bumped past it and entered the Jadriel Garden.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOGvnm8Hm70
Serpentine took him straight back to her small life station, to the room where he had been living since his return to the Great Caprican Monastery sectars earlier. Little over forty mili-centons had elapsed since h had escaped from the garden.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwNktnmLe8a
I came to them there later having paused for a few microns to talk to Cain. Adama was sitting still and Serpentine was washing him. He was cleaner for his dip in the sea but many of his cut marks had opened. Serpentine mopped and cleaned and dressed. I settled close, resting my large helmet frame on the ground for my energy cells were greatly overtaxed and in need of time to recharge.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz6UDx9pYkZ
"Would you like to talk to me now?" I asked, and he nodded. "All right. Begin," I said. As you gather, I was in no state to trifle. "Do you need hypnotic assistance?" Adama shook his head. He started to speak.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiKym8FS5NB
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ADAMA'S NARRATIVE181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4W8sPteOrU
Well, the Galactica was riding on its anti-grav units, and I felt a great surge of hope. At the same time I was aware that I was heading into the unknown and was leaving the only creature that had ever come to me with a selfless interest. Dae-Itz. The name means "Great Breath." "Great Inspiration."181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrWhm9J8L1
Then we faltered. The acceleration died away. The fierce grip of the planet had begun to assert itself. I wondered why the Galactica did not immediately fire the turbos. I thought it was busy with calculation. I thought it had overestimated its own pliability.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoVUfpkFnOQ
And even as I was wondering and preparing myself for a fall that would just be a conclusion, I felt the Galactica shake and then, unmistakably, begin to rise again. The viewscreens showed me nothing. They were absolutely occluded.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAAfmo8lfeg
I called out to the bio-crystalline brain of the Galactica to tell me what was happening. I demanded to know if it had fired the turbos.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0IGp3N5Imu
There was no reply for a micron and then came the Galactica's calm voice whispering. "Commander Adama. The anti-gravity generators have failed and I have released what I can of their weight...."181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVo4KxR4Iox
"Then what...."181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq0f93p5dAJ
"The escape turbos have not yet been fired. We are at present in the grip of the alien life-form with which you have been communicating, that you call Dae-Itz. It is lifting us at an acceleration unhoped for. It has us gripped...." (pause) "We are approaching the atmospheric limit of the planet." Pause. "We do not yet have escape velocity." (pause) "We must fire emergency retros."181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfRhpK5VVal
"Can't you fire them?"181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgUBqwMk6rV
"I need your order."181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ZJhZFXlQ8
"Why, for Sagan's sake?"181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ79ua5Gvlal
"Because when the turbos are fired they will kill the life-form that is lifting us. We will tear through it. We are approaching the critical mark. I cannot kill. I need your order." Pause. Then...181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKCPNooUFGE
"Escape limit in 5 microns." It began to count.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJztAS1kSk0
"4 microns......181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKvFrnV88qd
"3 microns.....181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQMZVCpzC1R
"2 microns...….181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ1OSC5MQod
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"FIRE!"181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaZYxW3ncVr
I screamed the word and the Galactica, ready and waiting, obeyed. The acceleration was like a punch in the back. We leaped away from the planet with a roar and in so doing we ripped through the thin fabric of the creature that had saved us. We tore it apart. The viewports cleared and I saw parts of it slither past. Those cameras that were looking downward showed me the creature in tatters. Parts of it were exploding, parts were burning, the rest was falling down to the gray sea. We had torn through the body of the most beautiful creature I had ever known. Again I had killed but this time there could be no forgiveness....181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQzRRIYIkbB
I have done this. Me. Adama, the lover of life, the giver. I have done this. And now the truth is told....181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNJD2BtAPE3
....yet not told. For the deepest truth is that I found pleasure in the destruction. The killing had relish. That is the terrible truth I have tried to hide from. And now it is in the open. The murderer was not expulsed. The beast by the river was not tamed.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfuPOrlIIxP
All my life I had wanted to be the selfless giver, and at the moment of crisis I was found wanting. It gave up its life so that I could live....but I killed it. I killed it. And the killing had relish. I do not deserve to live. There can be no forgiveness. Close your book. I have failed in my deepest ideal and there is no health in me.181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbTrZCDtXk2
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Adama railed on in this way for several mili-centons and then finally became still. His final words were, "You should have let me die!"181Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVs7FMJNvBw
