Servant of the Bones

They nodded only because they feared to lose his favor. They debated now, speak, don't speak, nod, bow, do what?

I drew in my breath and resolved to be visible; the air moved; there was a faint noise. The room felt a vague commotion as the particles gathered with tremendous force, yet I was taking no more than the first stage, the airy form.

The doctors looked about in confusion; the first to see me pointed. It was transparent, but vividly colored, and perfectly detailed. . Then the others saw me.

Gregory spun around to his right and looked at me.

I gave him my soft evil smile. I think it was evil anyway. I floated. In airy form, I had no need to stand, or to anchor. I was a thousand degrees from the density that obeys gravity. I stood on the ground, but I didn't need to. This was a choice, like the position of a flower in a painting.

He glared at me, seeing the thin mirage of a long-haired man, clothed as I had been when I left him, but thinner than glass.

"This is a holograph, Gregory," said one of the doctors.

"It's being projected from somewhere," said another.

The men began to look around the room. "Yeah, it's one of those cameras up there."

"... it's some sort of trick."

"Well, who the hell would dare pull a thing like this in your own . . ."

"Quiet!" Gregory said.

He raised his hand for absolute obedience and he got it. His face was locked with fear and despair.

"Remember," I said aloud, "I'm watching you."

The cohorts heard me and commenced whispering and shuffling.

"Put your hand through it," said the white-coated one closest to me. When Gregory failed to obey, the young man approached and moved to do it, and I merely looked at him and watched him and wondered what he felt, if it was a chill, or electric. His hand penetrated me, easily, causing no seam in the vision.

He drew back his hand.

"Somebody's gotten into security," he said quickly, looking me directly in the eyes. They were all babbling again, that someone was controlling the image, that someone somehow had figured a way to do this, and that it was probably-

Gregory couldn't bring himself to answer.

I had accomplished my purpose.

He struggled desperately for some command, some powerful verbal weapon against me that wouldn't make him the fool in the eyes of the others. Then he spoke in a cold voice.

"When you give me your reports, tell me exactly how these bones could be destroyed," he said.

"Gregory, this is a holograph, this thing. I want to call security . . ."

"No," he declared. "I know who is responsible for this little trick. I have it covered. It merely caught me off guard. There's no breach. Get to work."

His self-confidence and quiet air of command really were kingly.

I laughed softly. I kissed his cheek. It was rough and he drew back. But he faced me. The men were astonished by the gesture.

The men merely came closer, surrounding me, absolutely certain in their incredible ignorance and bigotry that I was an apparition being made electrically by someone else. For a moment, I scanned their faces. I saw wickedness in their faces, but it was a brand of wickedness I didn't fully understand. It was too connected with power. These men loved their power. They loved their purpose, but what exactly was it that they did when they weren't analyzing relics?

I let them study me, looking from face to face. Then I struck upon the mastermind. The tall emaciated doctor, who in fact blackened his hair with dye, and who looked older than he was on account of his thinness. He was the brilliant one; his gaze was far more critical and suspicious than that of the others. And he monitored Gregory's responses with a cold calculation.

"Look, this is all very fancy," said this one, "this holograph, but we can get on this analysis tonight. You realize we can give you an image like this, this holograph, of the man who once had these bones?"

"Can you really do that?" I asked.

"Yes, of course-" He stopped, realizing he was talking to me. He began to make gestures all around me. So did the others. They were trying to interrupt the projection of the beam that they thought had created me.

"Simple forensic procedure," said another, boldly ignoring the continuing strangeness of all this.

"And we'll get on this security thing immediately."

Others continued to search the ceilings and the walls.

A man moved to a telephone.

"No!" Gregory said. He stared at the Bones.

". . . permeated with something, some chemical obviously; well, we .can have all of that analyzed, I mean, we'll be able to tell you-"

Gregory turned and looked at me. A clearer comprehension of him came to me.

This was a man who could only use everything that came to him; he was not passive in any meaning of that word. The frustration he felt now would fuel his rage and his invention; it would drive him to greater lengths; he was only holding firm now, biding his time. And what he learned now would enhance his cunning and his capacity to surprise.

I turned to the doctors. "Let me know the outcome of your tests, will you?" I said, being a deliberately dreadful devil.

This caused quite a flurry.

I dissolved. I did it instantly.

The heat passed out of me, and the particles swarmed, too tiny no doubt for them to see. But the men felt the change in temperature; they felt the movement of the air. They were in confusion, looking around for another projected figure, perhaps, among them, for a switch in the direction of the light beam which they thought had made me appear.

I understood something further about them. They regarded their science as omnipotent. Science was the explanation not only for me but for anything and everything. In other words, they were materialists who beheld their science as magic.

The irony of this was very funny to me. Anything I did they would perceive to be science beyond their understanding. And I had been made by those who had been convinced that magic had the power of "science," if you just knew all the right words!

I went up and up, through the ceiling and the floor above it, rising through the shiny, bustling, crowded layers of the building, until I could not see the Bones any longer. The golden glimmer was gone.

I was in the fresh and cool night sky. Find Rachel, I thought. Your test is accomplished. You know now you are free.

He can't stop you. Go now where you will.

But in truth, the experiment would only be complete if I could make myself fully solid once more.

The scarf. I had forgotten about the scarf.

I drew down closer to the building. Only now did I really see its full height and grandeur. Covered all over even to its top floors with granite, it sloped majestically as it rose, rather like an ancient place of worship. There must have been fifty floors. Numbers don't come to me automatically. We had been on the twenty-fifth floor just now.